Different Paths
by pspinler
Summary: Dark - What paths guide the actions Ranma and Co, can they change ? Please read and review
1. The Path of Law

**The Path of Law**

* * *

Disclaimer: Legally useless, but for the sake of politeness, I don't own these characters or situations. I offer this purely for your enjoyment. 

Apologies for the way this worked out, but the latter half of the last chapter is the new bit I originally wanted to publish. See my notes at the end of this page for an explanation.

* * *

It was late night over Nermia. A shape slid into and out of shadow in silence as it drifted down streets and alleys. The figure was slowing down and employing more stealth as it neared it's destination. Passing briefly under a streetlight, it was illuminated as a young, curvaceous woman of Chinese appearance with unusual long, lavender hair. Briefly, the figure paused at the door to a small eatery who's signed labeled it the Nekohanten. 

Tired and frazzled, Shampoo paused outside the door, listening to see if anyone was awake inside. It was going to be a long night, after returning from a long journey, and she couldn't afford to be caught yet. While Cologne couldn't help but know she was back from Jusendo along with Mousse and the rest, if Cologne knew the information she had just purchased from Nabiki and what she intended to do about it, Cologne might stop her. 

When she was certain that no one was downstairs, Shampoo grimaced tiredly and sprang lightly to the roof, crossed to the back, and dropped down into her open window. She paused to listen again. Ah ! That was a reassurance. Cologne had her small T.V. on and was watching one or the other of those interminable and annoying Japanese mini-series. Shampoo never understood what Cologne saw in them, but it was good news for her plans. Cologne was invariably glued to the screen while the show ran it's course, and went to bed immediately after. Mousse, she could hear, was snoring, still exhausted from their trip. 

Shampoo dearly wished she could afford the luxury of sleep. If what she feared came to pass, she might soon cease to be concerned about sleeping, or anything else for that matter. Amazon law was harsh. 

Instead, she quietly made her way down to the kitchen, and started her preparations. Nabiki had informed her that the two bumbling idiots, her Airen and the Kitchen Destroyer's fathers, were going to force the two to wed on the morrow, regardless of the participant's willingness. After the events in Jusendo, Shampoo didn't doubt that they couple in question would go through with it. Well, the Kitchen Destroyer, anyway. Her husband would likely be to shocked and tongue tied to object. Her husband, damn it ! He beat her fair and square, in front of the entire village ! It wasn't as if she were unwilling, after all. Hadn't she shown him that ? Why couldn't he see what he was doing to her ? Didn't he know what would happen to her if she failed ! Worst of all, it would be her own Great Grandmother who would be forced to carry out the sentence. It was, after all, the responsibility of the Matriarch to enforce the law. 

Damn Ranma ! Damn Akane ! Damn that stupid law ! And Damn Great Grandmother's timidity and restrictions ! 'I fear the consequences' indeed. Well she, Shampoo, was going to have to face the consequences after tomorrow if she did nothing. It was time and past that she acted decisively. 

Shampoo's gaze slowly cleared and she surveyed the crockery she had broken in her exhaustion induced rage. Thank God Cologne wouldn't come to check on this. One time there was an actual fire on the grill during one of her shows. She watched the t.v. the entire time the fire council was here putting it out. Of course, she'd hear about it in the morning, but it'd be too late by then, one way or another. 

Picking up another bowl, Shampoo closed the cupboard with the normal noodles and opened the storage closet for the bag of nitrogen fertilizer. She'd have to get some diesel fuel, too. She had seen Ranma fight enough times to know that she would not win against him, especially after he had defeated an immortal Pheonix, a self proclaimed God. Still, she would rather die an honored warrior than be executed as a spat upon convict. Besides, this way she might have some measure of revenge against her rival. 

Pausing for a moment, she considered. Make that rivals. She was certain Nabiki would have sold the same information to the other 'fiancees'. Perhaps an ally or two might be in order, and if an opportunity presented itself, she might have several of her rivals' souls to escort her to the afterlife. Hmm, she'd likely not have to do anything for the Crazy Girl to show up, but the other ... 

Picking up the phone, Shampoo dialed the Ucchans.

* * *

"Shampoo! Where is that girl? Mr. Part Time! Are they both gone?" Cologne suppressed a sense of foreboding. Both her great- granddaughter and the pest appeared to be gone, and she knew they were both tired after arriving home last night. Perhaps she should have investigated the odd noises in the kitchen last night. Feh. let the young people believe what they will about her, but it was normally good practice for them to take responsibility for themselves. It's not like any lives had ever been placed in danger, even during that fire last year. 

This current situation though, something felt badly wrong about it. She needed to find her great-granddaughter before something precipitous happened. Well, best to check first with the son-in-law. Everything seemed to start with that boy. Hopping on her stick, Cologne started toward the Tendo Dojo. 

Cologne may not have shown it, but by now she was genuinely fond of Ranma. He was a pure joy to teach, intensely loyal once decided, unlike his father held dearly to what honor he could, and had a fierce, unmatched determination the like of which she had not seen for generations. 

Shortly after her arrival and the episode with the Cat-Fist, she recognized that bringing Ranma home by force would be an unmitigated disaster. Early on he showed that he could defeat even her, using the cat-fist. Since then, he had grown even stronger, to the point where he had even defeated those annoying Musk dynasty visitors. Perhaps a little shadily and by the skin of his teeth, but defeated nevertheless. She looked forward to hearing what he had accomplished in his recent trip to China. 

No, the boy couldn't be forced, he would have to want to return to their village. She had backed off strictly enforcing the law on either of the youngsters to give them the time and space they needed, and even advised her great-granddaughter to be gentle luring in the groom. Unfortunately, in this her great-granddaughter had proven a large disappointment. Trust and support was what the boy needed, not pressure and fighting with the other girls over him. 

While Cologne could delay enforcing the law for as long as the boy didn't openly reject Shampoo, sooner or later she feared something would happen that would force her hand, and she did not believe that she would be able to effect a solution by force. And, she admitted to herself, she no longer really wished to. 

Halfway to her destination, Cologne saw something very worrisome indeed. On the ground in front of her was a folded, formal invitation which someone must have dropped. She felt strangely compelled to look at it. Her sense of foreboding growing geometrically, Cologne reached down an aged, trembling hand, and flipped back the cover. 

It was possibly the worst thing she could have imagined, a wedding invitation for Ranma and Akane, announcing that the event was happening right now. She could imagine what happened, those two foolish students of Happosai's (spit) must have forced the issue. Unless this could be stopped, quickly, and with a minimum of fuss, this could force her to action. Worse yet, if Shampoo tried to do something, her great-granddaughter would likely not worry about causing a minimum of fuss. 

At that precise instant, a series of loud booms rolled over the street, from the direction of her destination, the Tendo dojo. Cologne's face paled even further, and she leaped into motion, abandoning her courteous and (mostly) normal locomotion on the streets and making a beeline for the dojo across the rooftops. 

'Spirits of my Ancestors, please don't let the situation be as bad as I fear,' she muttered as she scurried and bounded on her way. 

The situation wasn't as bad as she feared. The spirits were apparently on vacation this year; it was worse. 

Landing on top the compound wall, Cologne was just in time to see Ranma throw off a pile of debris which had apparently contained him, and rush her great-granddaughter. Shampoo, eyes and hair flashing, had just pulled a sword out of a prone and already badly wounded Akane, and poised ready to deliver a death blow. Shampoo never saw Ranma coming, Cologne herself could barely track the blur of his progress. 

Cologne, her own scream ignored, watched as with a despairing yell, Ranma literally collapsed Shampoo around his fist, aborting her own strike. Instead of flying back, as she would have for a non-lethal blow, she folded around his arm like a rag doll, accompanied by a sickening crunch, followed by the clang of her sword hitting the ground and a wet sound of blood spurting out her mouth and nose. 

Ranma didn't even wait for Shampoo to fall, and instead dropped to his knees, crying and gathering Akane into his arms, heedless of the blood. Still on the wall, Cologne heard Akane's weak whisper pierce the sudden quiet, "I ... love ... you" as her eyes closed. 

The next scream heard was Ranma's. 

Thunderstruck, Cologne sat on the wall, and finally begin noticing more details. Akane and Shampoo were not the only prone figures. She could now make out the bodies of the young Okonomiyaki chef, and a middled aged woman that matched Shampoo's description of Ranma's mother. Absently, Cologne guessed from the positioning that Nodoka had been caught in the explosions attempting to help Akane, and the fatal sword wound in Ukyo's kidneys definitely matched Shampoo's blade. 

This was far, far worse than Cologne had feared. Or dear goddess, how she wished the situation had not come to this. Shampoo, what have you done ? 

Nevertheless, Cologne was compelled by Shampoo's own actions to act herself. Her hand was now forced to actively enforcing the law. She would need to act fast, now, and a matriarch is not made in hesitation. She could see that Shampoo was still alive, if barely, as was Nodoka. She could only pray that Ranma would go along, even with the consequences to him, and that the situation would not get still worse. She moved to help Shampoo. 

"Son-in-law, I regret this, but my hand is now forced. You are declared twice guilty of violations of our law, for rejecting your wife, and striking her with intent to kill. You will accompany me now. We will try to save Shampoo lest you be found guilty of murder , as well as your mother. After this, we shall return to Joketsuzoku to face judgment." 

Even as she spoke, she could see the anger and hatred welling inside Ranma, now being directed toward her. Twice unfortunate, the spirits were still not with her on this day. Nodoka spoke before Ranma could formulate a response from his shock. 

"My .. son." 

"Mom !" Ranma carefully lay down Akane's body to move to his mother. "Don't talk Mom ! I'll get you to a doctor !" 

Yes, please, for the moment, let him devote his concern to his mother. She spared a minute part of her attention to her environment from the near hopeless task of trying to save Shampoo. She could feel that Nodoka was very badly injured as well, and unlikely to survive more than a few moments. 

Out of the corner of her eye, she could see the other Tendo sisters gathering around Ranma, Akane, and Nodoka. The middle Tendo looked nearly as enraged as Ranma himself, the eldest's face was wrapped in grief. The two fathers were still in shock with the remaining wedding guests. 

Nodoka continued in a failing voice. "No .. Son, listen. Marry a ... Tendo, and ... avenge this ... insult to our clan." 

Nodoka, held on long enough to see Ranma's nod, and then too closes her eyes one last time. 

Oh no, oh spirits no. Shampoo was just barely being kept alive by her ministrations, the law demanded that Cologne bring Ranma back with her, and his mother had just died, upholding the boy's duty to his family's arranged marriage, and worst of all, declared a blood feud. Spirits of my ancestors, can this day get any worse ? 

"This insult was not just to clan Saotome, but to clan Tendo as well." 

And somehow, unbelievably, the head of the Tendo clan had done something decisive for the first time in years, joining his clan in the feud. She didn't have time for this. Ranma had to come with her now, willingly or not. 

"So be it." Cologne rasped, and in a smooth, deceptively slow appearing motion, left her current charge and struck at Ranma. 

To her utter amazement, Cologne missed. Somehow, Ranma was no longer holding his mother, or trapped between the two corpses. Instead he was a blur of strikes, moving faster than even she could. 

"You and your laws killed my best friend, they Killed my Mother, and they KILLED my WIFE !" Cologne was so hard pressed that she barely had opportunity to make out Ranma's enraged scream. 

To anyone else watching, the fighters moved so fast and furiously that the outcome was indeterminable. Cologne could tell though; she wasn't controlling this fight. She was pushed onto the defensive, and Ranma wasn't fighting in his normal, restrained manner, fighting only to defeat. Instead, he was going all out, and striking for a kill. 

Hundreds of blows were exchanged and countered in the space of a second, from a dozen different fluid positions all over the yard. Here they bounced off a wall as Cologne dodged a kick to her hip. There a small portion of the yard exploded up in dust as they landed and exchanged another series of blows ending in a lightning fast staff thrust to the throat, riposted by a rising trap that caught, and broke Cologne's extended wrist. 

Suddenly, Cologne wasn't fighting a defensive fight, she was loosing, badly. She desperately needed a distraction. For the first time that day, the spirits favored her and she received one. 

It came in the form of the blind imbecile who followed her great-granddaughter. Mousse, apparently finally realizing that Shampoo was badly injured or perhaps dead, screamed his own frustration and flung a series of a few dozen throwing knives at Ranma. Amazingly, they were all thrown at the correct target. Still they would only delay the boy for a half a second, and Cologne knew she wouldn't be able to use the distraction to attack, Ranma's defenses were too good, and she was too hurt. Cologne was desperate, she needed a more pressing distraction, like his mother had provided when still alive ... 

Hmm, a hostage, if she played it just right, no one else would have to die this day. 

Landing near the Tendos, Cologne ignored the flash of a small ki blast behind her as Ranma dealt with Mousse. She grabbed for the nearest. It was Kasumi. This could work. 

Ranma froze mid leap across the yard, catching sight of the apparently ridiculous tableau of a foot high ghoul with her good hand on the kneeling eldest Tendo sister's neck. Ranma, though, knew that the situation was deadly. Cologne had done the one thing which could stop him. 

"Stand back, Ranma, or another Tendo dies this day" Cologne panted through her own pain and exhaustion. 

The force of Ranma's hate filled glance struck her worse than a physical blow. She could even feel an hate aura coming from the untrained middle sister. Underneath her, the eldest only trembled. 

How had she let the situation get to this point ? Dear spirits, would she be able to salvage nothing ? Even now she could see that her idea would not hold the boy for long. The instant she let go, the boy would be on her again. She felt the shackles of law dragging her deeper into this morass like a physical weight. She did not want to walk this path ! 

Again, the spirits showed their tendency to favor the idiots. She could hear Mousse extracting himself. He was apparently alive and relatively undamaged. "Mousse, quickly, pick up Shampoo and leave for the Nekohanten !" 

Waiting only long enough for Mousse to obey her, Cologne acted in the only way she felt she could. She held no hope of enforcing the law by herself any longer. Her only option now was to escape to notify the tribe of these happenings. As powerful as Ranma had become, the tribe must be warned ! 

There was no help for it. Cologne moved her hand, and a sickening pop was heard. Kasumi suddenly went limp, and Cologne gently lay her down next to her sister. With some effort, she even ignored the terror in the poor girls eyes. 

Straightening, she barked "Stop ! She yet lives !" Ranma again arrested his attack, although Cologne could see it was but for a moment. 

"Her spine is severed. If she receives life support in the next few minutes, she will survive. You must take her, Ranma. If you wait for an ambulance, it will be too late." 

With that, Cologne, cradling her broken wrist, bounced over the wall, and fled for the Nekohanten as if the hounds of hell pursued her. In a sense, they did. She had condemned herself to hell today. Tears for all the senseless loss streamed down her face. 

By the time she reached the Nekohanten, her heir was also dead.

* * *

Authors Notes 

Bit of a combined authors notes here. I had wanted, (after long delay) to merely post my latest installment of this fiction. Unfortunately, by now in their infinite wisdom, horribly mangles my simple, plain text files. 

So, I have to reformat in something like html just to maintain minimum readability. But as long as I'm doing that, it's just as easy for me to redo the whole fiction, and combine some text into fewer chapter. And well, if I happen to fix a few grammer and spelling errors on the way, all the to the better. 

In the interest of the original stories, I'm also reproducing all my original authors notes below.

* * *

Authors Notes 

It's rather fun to work with slightly different variations of the stock characters, as well as slightly different writing styles. Here, I'm presenting Shampoo as a little more bloodthirsty, and I'm going to concentrate different chapters on different character's viewpoints, as much as possible, although still in the third person. 

As outlined, this will be a medium sized story arc. I'm borrowing a couple of themes from other fictions, although I don't want to give much away by mentioning which just yet. As you can see, this story is going to advance in a very dark direction, at least for a while. Fair warning, it will get much much darker before light is seen. 

For those who care about this sort of thing, there will be a Ranma matchup by the end. Getting to the end, the story will be sorta Ranma/Akane, and sorta Ranma/Nabiki. Expect some twists and turns. It will likely change direction at times. You, and I, will find out what happens at the end. 

Authors notes - Okay, this chapter was from Cologne's viewpoint. The next, I think, will be from Nabiki's. 

I'm uncertain of this style of writing, since I'm slipping between character thought and narrative description without clearly delineating which is which. Oh, and I know I'm still mixing up tenses too, which isn't deliberate. 

Hopefully, the story is still understandable and interesting regardless. Please let me know. 


	2. The Path of Vengence

**Path of Vengence**

* * *

Nabiki stumbled into the hospital in exhaustion and delayed shock. It was very early in the morning, and it had been a very long day; by now events were catching up with her. In her hand, she carried a copy of the video of that day's events. Her formal dress was reduced to ruffles and tatteres, her face like a white mask around two red and bloodshot pits, and her hair was a disaster. Unnoticed by her, tears slowly leaked out her eyes. 

It had started with what was to be the day of her sister's wedding, but since then, it had descended into the stuff of nightmare. She recalled vividly teasing Akane as she helped her dress, laughing at her sister's embaressment over what a wedding night would involve. Even Ranma had admitted how beautiful Akane had been in her wedding gown. Nabiki had also made a great deal of money from the usual Nermia suspects peddling information about the event. 

She had never in her wildest dreams imagined the disaster that would ensue. It had just been some harmless fun on her part. After all, everyone would have discovered the wedding on their own anyway, and by getting them to come as guests, she had believed that would place some limits on their behavior. 

She had never been more wrong. 

The images of Akane, Kasumi, Nodoka, and Ukyo being struck down by those filthy, animalistic bitches replayed again and again in her mind. May the souls of their murderers rot in the lowest levels of hell. 

Only a few seconds after Cologne disappeared over the wall, Ranma had gathered a paralized Kasumi in his arms. Nabiki could see the terror in her remaining sister's eyes, she was not breathing on her own. She could not loose another sister! Quickly, she had stopped Ranma, and shown him how to breathe for Kasumi while he carried her; Kasumi's diaphram and lungs had apparently been paralyzed along with the rest of her. Ranma had then disappeared himself carrying Kasumi's limp form to the nearest hospital. 

Then, Nabiki had been the only reponsible one left at the dojo. She had called the police. She had called a taxi to the hospital, and stuffed her crying father into it, Genma had fortunately decided to go along. She had been the one to deal with the guests, some of which were more troublesome than others. Kuno Tatewaki had, for once, acted with true nobility, and bowed to her argument that any vengence was clan Tendo and clan Saotome's to take. He had even been gracious enough to offer the aid of the Kuno estate. Nabiki had gratefully accepted, and said they would call if they needed any assistance. Despite the directionless idiot trying blaming Ranma for this tragedy, Nabiki had used the shame of Ryoga's dishonorable actions of using his pig form to sleep with Akane into forcing him to accept the same argument. Finally, she had sent Happosai (after his pretense of a few seconds of grief for the 'pretty ladies') bounding after the Kuno bitch who had the audacity to show up in a black wedding dress and crow at the deaths of her baby sister and Ukyo. God she hated that woman. She truely deserved whatever attention Happosai gave her. 

Then she had to talk to the police for several hours. Fortunately, she had hired people to videotape the ceremony, and the camera was set up to make several copies simultaneously. Nabiki had anticipated selling copies of the video to the guests immediately after the ceremony. Now, those tapes were put to another use, in showing the police the events. 

Nabiki had thrown up watching her sisters being killed and paralyzed again. 

With the hard evidence on the tapes there would be no problem for their families from the authorities. In fact, the police had already put out what the Americans called an 'All Points Bulletin' on the amazons. Unfortunately, the officers said that by the time they arrived at the Nekohaughten, the store was deserted. 

Then, perhaps worst of all, she had to deal with the coriners. The less she thought about that, the better. 

After that the caterers, the photographers, the priest, the musicians, and everyone else hired for the wedding had to be paid and sent home. 

Gods, she could barely think straight, she desperately needed a rest, and she still didn't even know yet if Kasumi was okay. The only thing keeping her going now was concern for her sister and a burning hatred toward the amazons. When she tried to close her eyes and rest for a moment in the taxi, the images recorded on the copy of the tape in her hand ran past her eyelids, making her desperate for something else to look at. 

Finally reaching the reception area, she leaned against the desk. "Tendo Kasumi, please", she muttered at the desk clerk. "She should have been brought here yesterday." 

The girl behind the desk looked at Nabiki with concern. "Miss, do you want to sit down a moment ? You're the other sister, right ? I've been told to expect you. Look, I'll call an orderly to help take you back to intensive care." 

Nabiki was about to refuse when she found that she could not push herself vertical from leaning on the desk. "Yes, that would be helpful. Thank you." 

In what seemed only a moment, an orderly was helping her walk down a seemingly endless set of white aneseptic corridors into a room filled with people and beeping equipment. To her ragged amusement, she noted distantly the mop and bucket being put to use around and underneath where her father was collapsed weeping by the hospital bed. 

Drawing in her breath and steading herself, Nabiki focused on the bed and took a step forward. When she saw Kasumi's pale face, covered with the ventilator mask, things went dim. Suddenly, without knowing exactly what happened, she found herself half prone, apparently supported by a strong pair of arms. 

"You fainted," commented Ranma, neutrally. Neither Ranma nor Nabiki paid attention when Genma rose from his seat, and after a shared glance with Soun, left the room. 

Looking up at Ranma's face was almost frightening. Nabiki would likely have soiled herself if his focus had been directed at her. Ranma was still clad in his rent and bloody white tuxedo rental. His face was drawn and haggard, at least as pale and bloodshot as her own. Yet, boiling underneath it was a rage and hate so great Nabiki could have sworn his eyes were glowing. 

Rallying a little, Nabiki made an almost normal comment. "You look awful Saotome. How's Kasumi?" 

Ranma dismissed her comment. "So do you. Kasumi's asleep for now." Then, Ranma did turn his focus on her. Nabiki was right, she did nearly piss herself. "Where is Cologne?" 

"Gone. The Neko Hanten was deserted. Almost certainly left for China." Nabiki grasped his arm, and prevented Ranma's sudden move toward the door. "Wait! Even you can't do this alone, against all the elders! Even if you can beat Cologne by yourself! You need my help, Saotome, and you're not leaving me out of this !" 

Ranma focused on her again. This time Nabiki withstood his gaze a bit better. The thought of her own hate strengthened her. Neither knew it, but at that moment, their expressions looked remarkably similar. "How, and when," he demanded flatly. 

"We will have vengeance, I promise that," Nabiki swore. 

Ranma finally nodded, satisfied with something he saw in her face, then cocked an eyebrow, indicating he wanted her to continue. 

"With this," Nabiki waved the 'wedding' tape in her hand. "Copies are already on their way to all the major news outlets. I'll parley the outrage from this into a meeting with our local Diet representative, and we can raise enough of a diplomatic stink to demand Cologne's head from the PRC. The amazons will refuse, of course ...", Nabiki stopped her tired babbling when she noticed her father's hand on her shoulder. Genma was similarly maneuvering his son toward the door and down the hall. 

"Daddy ? What's going on?" was all the question Nabiki's fuddled mind could raise. Through her bewilderment, Nabiki noted that Soun had, somehow, ceased bawling as she and Ranma were herded into a room. The hospital chapel? What? 

Somehow, Nabiki found herself, still in her ragged bridesmaid dress, standing in front of a priest, with Ranma in his bloody tuxedo at her side, muttering "I do" at the appropriate places in response to the western style vows. 

Nabiki couldn't summon the will or energy to argue with her father when he had whispered "do this for me" in her ear, as he delivered her to the front of the altar. Dazedly, she wondered why Ranma was going along with this, especially when she saw how badly his hand was shaking when he put was was to have been Akane's ring on her finger. Given their fathers, she should have expected it, Nabiki supposed. There had just been just too many things to keep track of. 

In the lounge outside the chapel, Nabiki saw to her surprise that the sun was rising outside the window. Finally, she shook off enough of her own shock to turn to her new husband, ignoring the fathers, the priest, and the various witnesses that had been rounded up, and opened her mouth. Whatever she had to saw must remain unknown, however, fate was not done with her yet this day and she was interrupted again. 

"Saotome," a familiar voice oozed from the hallway. "I've found you. Now you will die for killing Shampoo." 

Nabiki looked toward the stairway door, and hissed in hatred. There, framed by the light from a stairwell window behind him, stood the last of the accursed Amazons left in Japan. Mousse's arms were tucked into his sleeves, poised. Atypically, his glasses were actually on, and his gaze firmly and accurately fixed on Ranma. 

"Before I kill you, I have a message from Cologne. If you survive to meet her again, it will be with all the elders together, and even you cannot prevail against them all. One way or another, we will have our vengeance. Now die!" 

Mousse sprang across the room, pulling a pair of sabers from his sleeves. He had barely cleared the weapons, however, when his throat met Ranma's fist, crushing Mousse's larynx, and snapping his head back with a sickening pop. No one there had even seen Ranma move. 

Ranma watched coldly, fist still extended, as Mousse collapsed to the ground. Nabiki nodded in her own cold approval, and caught Mousse's eyes just before the life went out of them. "Die, you asshole, and join your bitch in hell," she hissed. 

Nabiki was satisfied to see that there was a hospital security camera which, hopefully, filmed the entire episode. Between that and the witnesses, there would be no problem with the police over this episode. Mouse had obviously attacked with fatal intent first. Looking back at the recently living pile of worthless meat, Nabiki felt herself growing unaccountably warm between her legs. Vaguely, she recalled reading how death could sometimes effect people that way. 

She shrugged, dismissing the reasons as unimportant, and decided to take some advantage of being married. Reaching up to a still coldly glaring Ranma, she turned him toward her, wrapped her arms around him, and kissed him. After a moment, Ranma started responding, both to the kiss, and Nabiki could feel, in other ways. 

Breaking the kiss, Nabiki whispered a little breathlessly, "Husband, take me home. Now." 

Ranma picked her up, Nabiki's arms still around his neck, and the two of them disappeared through the open window.

* * *

Ranma slipped into the small clearing in the trees on the mountainside where Nabiki had established their camp this time. He smiled to see that their Chinese liaison team had caught up to them. Who'd have thought that Nabiki could have gotten fit enough to keep up to him, carrying that much gear, in just 8 months? Of course he hadn't been going all out, but still. 

Reaching the center of the clearing, Ranma ducked under the small camo drop cloth propped up to contain any light, dropped the Umisenken with a soft rustle of cloth, and faded out of invisibility next to Nabiki. Behind him, the PRC liaison officer jumped, as did a couple of the sentries on the PRC special ops team. The first time he had done that, Ranma had unknowingly almost sparked a firefight. 

Nabiki just looked up from her military hardened terminal, courtesy of the Kunos, and nodded to acknowledge his presence. The subdued glow from the terminal was the only illumination in the nighttime clearing, giving barely enough light to see her by, the moon being hidden behind the trees. Nabiki, like Ranma, was dressed in a set of camouflage fatigues, wore a similarly patterned lightweight stocking cap, and had her face blackened. Additionally, she carried an AK-47 slung over her shoulder. 

"One team of three scouts on the lower slopes will pass near the Chinese artillery emplacements. Otherwise they're safe," Ranma reported. 

"Show me where," Nabiki gestured at the satellite photograph displayed in on the terminal in front of her, linked by camouflaged fiber optic cable to the main tactical computers in the Chinese field headquarters. 

Ranma came in behind her and tapped on the map shown. "Here. They're moving this way. There are 3 other scout teams on this flank, here, here, and here." 

The Japanese speaking PRC liaison officer listened and watched closely as Nabiki placed the appropriate icons on the tactical situation map, nodding to himself. "You'll have to take out this team, then, without letting the others discover it for at least 2 more hours. The other three groups as well, but they won't be critical until they reach the target valley. Can you do it, or shall I send our team?" 

"Feh. This will be the fourth column we've handled. What do you think?" Ranma snorted in contempt. By now, with his undetectable Umisenken technique, he was doing the majority of the scouting and was held in awe by the special forces team assigned to accompany them. "By the way, we left before the cleanup was complete on the last refugee column. How many surrendered after I brought down that elder and the top warriors ?" 

"Over 70. That makes over 600 total from all columns. The last group was shipped out to be split up and resettled yesterday. None of the warriors surrendered again." 

Ranma shrugged and looked back at Nabiki's map. "Still keep radio silence, right ?" 

"Right," Nabiki responded, with a slight frown. "Remember, we don't what happened to all the radios from the original Chinese expedition the amazons slaughtered. There's no way to know if this column has any." 

Ranma nodded. "Anything else ?" 

"At the rate this column is moving, we'll need you in place here," Nabiki tapped the map, "at no later than 0600 hours to handle the elder. I'd say to kill a couple of the Joketsuzoku bitches for me, but I'll be able to do that myself when their evacuation column reaches us," Nabiki smirked back. 

"Yeah, well, be careful. You know I'd rather you weren't in the middle of it this time. The best of them can dodge your machine gun, you know," Ranma cautioned his wife. 

"That's why the PRC agreed to have you along, Ranma. Now get out there." 

Ranma shook his head, and drawing a cloth across himself invoked the Umisenken again, fading out of sight. Picking his way out of the copse of trees and back down the mountain, Ranma meditated on the changes in Nabiki. 

Since their wedding, Nabiki's ice queen facade had hardened into an obsessive bloodthirstiness. Not that Ranma really minded. He wanted to see the Amazons dead as much as Nabiki did. By now, though, Ranma realized that he wouldn't have been able to accomplish half so much by himself as they had accomplished together. They made good partners. Beside, Nabiki was bent not just on vengeance against Cologne, but on the destruction of the Amazon nation, and she was succeeding. 

Events had proceeded almost exactly as Nabiki had predicted and promised to Ranma. Using the videos of Akane's, his mother's, and Ukyo's deaths, Nabiki had gotten a lot of news coverage and raised public outrage with the Amazons, both in Japan and internationally. Ranma didn't really understand how, but somehow she had used that outrage to get the Japanese government to pressure the PRC to deliver Cologne and bring the amazons to heel. 

"Just demand Cologne and they'll probably give in," she had told him, after they woke up in bed that first morning. "Demand that the amazons be broken up and resettled, though, and they'll have to refuse. Otherwise it'd be the end of the amazons, and that's what we really want." 

"So," she had said, "they'll either submit, and their nation ends, or most likely they'll fight, and the PRC will bring in the really big guns. The PRC will have to in order to maintain their authority, and they've already shown they are willing to, at Tianamin square. That's when we get to go along and help." At that point, Nabiki had resembled nothing so much as a big, toothy shark. 

Just as she had predicted, the small political and military expedition the PRC sent to the Amazon village with their demands had failed. If reports were to be believed, they were slaughtered to the last man. 

As Nabiki had hoped, the amazons, knowing what they faced, had tried to run. Evacuation columns had split off in different directions from the Amazon village. Each one was led by one of the elders. Elders were frighteningly competent, as the first expedition had proven to the Chinese. Each one could fight off several tanks or helicopters, and artillery and machine guns were useless to harm them. That wouldn't stop those same artillery shells and machine gun bullets from slaughtering the rest of the Amazons around the elders, though, and nothing would stop nukes, gas, or bioweapons. The Amazons only real choice had been to run. 

That's where Ranma came in. The PRC needed him or someone like him to handle the elders, and Ranma had a stake in this and wasn't a challenge to the PRC's authority, as some of the other top martial artists of their acquaintance might have been. The last thing the PRC wanted was to owe a debt to the rulers of other, unofficially acknowledged mini-kingdoms, like the Musk or Pheonix people. Since the elders split up, he could now take them one at a time. Nabiki, of course, came along as a 'liaison' officer. 

Ranma had to admit the sex was nice, too. Of course, he knew Nabiki was probably doing it at least in large part to keep him in line, but he didn't mind too much. After all, she wasn't asking him to do or not do anything he didn't want to. Besides, He was using Nabiki to get vengeance at least as much as she was using him. It wasn't like they loved each other or anything. 

By now, Ranma was within sight of the scouting party he was targeting. The three amazon warriors, obviously battle hardened veterans all, were competent scouts. They took turns slipping quietly from shadow to shadow in the moonlight, two of them watching while one moved, never loosing sight of each other, and never bunching up close enough to be taken all at once. Ranma could see them carefully taking note of the details of their surroundings while never exposing themselves to obvious sight. 

They never knew how outclassed they were. 

If made a little more than another mile of progress, they would find one of the Chinese artillery positions. It was time to stop them. Ranma would have to be careful to not use any high powered ki techniques yet. The other scouting parties would be close enough to feel them, and from past experience, each party had at least one ki adept. Making certain none of the other scouting parties were in sight, and without dropping his father's invisibility technique, Ranma waited while the first two scouts slipped by him and tracked the last one, a tall statuesque women with long green hair who appeared to be in her early 30's. He waited until the woman had moved into her next position, had been noted by the other two, and settled into her own watch before striking. Ranma simply grasped her head from behind, and with a quick, brutal twist, quietly broke her neck. 

Setting down the first corpse, Ranma quickly and invisibly caught up to where the currently moving amazon was setting herself. As soon as she set and the third started moving, Ranma repeated the maneuver, reaching around the young woman's pink hair and breaking the scout's neck with the same quick, brutal twist. 

Speed was of the essence now, he had to finish this before the remaining Amazon noticed something amiss with her two companions. Dropping the invisibility technique in favor of quick movement, Ranma leaped. He impacted the last scout, a short wiry woman in her mid twenties, before she knew anyone was there, driving her backward to the ground and planting his elbow into the woman's trachea, crushing it. Then he just had to pin her arms and use his weight to keep the woman trapped while she silently suffocated. Ranma watched her coldly as the woman's despairing eyes finally closed and she grew still. 

Ranma swirled a cloth around him as he rose, reinvoking his father's invisibility technique, and again checked to make certain he had not been seen. Satisfied, he moved the scout's bodies up the mountain one at a time a few hundred yards and dumped them into a small ravine. Returning, he erased his tracks and the signs of the small scuffle. 

Ranma checked his watch. He had to handle the other three scouting teams, then it would be time to make for the next rendezvous point, two valleys in that direction. If the column kept to it's pace, then shortly before sunup he would encounter it's main body in a valley ringed by the PRC army positions. He rather hoped that this column would be the one that Cologne was guiding. There were only 5 elders, each guiding a column of Amazon evacuees, and she wasn't in either of the first three they found and hunted. So, there was a one in two chance this time. He'd know in a couple of hours.

* * *

Ranma smirked as he invisibly watched the column as it passed him, guarded and flanked by groups of warriors. Any moment now, the demand for surrender would be broadcast. He wasn't certain why they bothered, the Amazons never surrendered, at least not until the warriors leading and flanking the column were dead. That was fine with him. If he shed every drop of blood from every one of them, it wouldn't yet be enough to make up for Akane. 

Closing his eyes, he felt for the strongest ki signatures. This time the elder escorting the group was in the van. It didn't feel like Cologne, which was a bit disappointing. It was damn inconvenient that she was so far ahead, Ranma would have to negotiate almost the entire column to get to her from his position at the open end of the valley, either that or get her to come to him. 

This time, Nabiki had said that a series of mines had been planted on the slopes leading up to the ridges overlooking the V shaped valley. The amazons had obviously planned to hole up here for the day, and had been counting on their scouts to insure the ridges were clear. They would probably have set up their own sentries there when they stopped. Well, so much for the scouts, and any of their other plans for the day. 

Hmmm, if he attracted the elder's attention and forced her to deal with him, the mines, artillery, and machine guns would do for anyone else who tried to rush the slopes. He'd have to be flashy this time, then. Best move directly into the path they'd try to flee in. It'd take the APC's and tanks waiting just over the hill a few minutes to get here and plug the valley. Without dropping his invisibility, Ranma drifted directly behind the column. 

Ranma heard the sudden blare of loud Chinese broadcast over megaphones from the Chinese positions, playing the prerecorded demand for surrender, and winced. Damn language. Even if he was beginning to understand it, he'd be only too happy when he never had to hear it again. 

In a testament to their discipline and training, the groups of warriors flanking the column almost immediately charged the ridgetops, while others tightened about the column trying frantically to reverse it's direction. 

This was his cue. Nabiki breaking radio silence and telling him "Ranma, Go" over his headset was purely superfluous. 

"I'm on it," Ranma replied, as he dropped his invisibility less than 50 yards directly in front of the amazon rear guard, now turned around and rushing his direction. "I'll come in from the rear, and use a lot of ki. That should pull the elder back." 

Before they even noticed him, Ranma dramatically flung his arms out and too the sides, not bothering to announce the technique, moving so fast that he created a set of sonic booms. Leaving the air no chance to close in behind his arms, he charged the vacuum with an amount of precisely tailored ki. The ki kept the air from recollapsing inward, and the air kept the ki in the precise, unearthly sharp, shape of a pair of large sickle blades. Both assemblages rocketed away from Ranma at a speed many times that of sound, straight toward the flanking parties of amazons facing him. Slicing uncaringly through armor, weapons, flesh, and bone, the aptly named vacuum blades cleaved heads, torsos, and limbs fatally, leaving only bloody corpses in their wake. 

Not leaving the women facing him time to gather themselves, Ranma rapidly charged up a ball of ki between his hands. When it reached a large enough size, he tightened his focus and sent a narrow beam of bright energy shooting out, which he played back and forth across the ranks of the opposing warriors like a fire hose. Everywhere it touched a massive explosion followed. Occasionally some dismembered part of a body could be seen amidst the moving fountain of earth and rock. 

Ranma could see that the explosions he created were soon joined by a series of exploding mines and artillery shells climbing the valley sides along with the rapidly thinning ranks of charging amazons. The survivors were rapidly changing tactics, scrabbling for what cover they could. They couldn't break the ambush by rushing emplaced modern weapons, they would have to simply hold off the army while the column escaped the way it came. Arrows and a few smaller ki blasts reached out toward the emplaced troops. Bullets, artillery, and mortar shells answered in return. 

Over his headset, Ranma could hear Nabiki as she screamed an imprecation, and the staccato rapping of her assault rifle as she squeezed off bursts. "Nabiki, do you see the elder, yet ? And close your mike if you're not going to talk." 

"Sorry. There's a small group of warriors making their way back down the column toward your position now. It's probably them. They're still a few hundred yards off." Thankfully, Nabiki did remember to close her microphone this time. 

Ranma held his blast and waited until a flight of arrows arced toward his position, while a countering powerful ki blast deflected his own harmlessly into the air. 

Rolling to one side to miss the flight of arrows, Ranma blurred. Moving fast enough to leave afterimages on the retina, he leaped into the still flying dirt and dust, absently avoiding the craters and gullies he had just created and the corpses in them. Meeting the charging group of reinforcements in the confusion, Ranma wasted no time. The first two women he met were dispatched before they knew he was there, one with her skull broken open reminiscent of a melon, and the other with rib and breastbone shards driven into her heart from a pair of lightning fast blows. 

The third adversary was both aware of him and a slightly better combatant. She managed to parry his roundhouse kick with a small shield at the cost of a broken shield arm and being spun halfway around. Ranma's followup strike was interrupted by the imposition of a wooden staff. The escorting elder had arrived. 

Ranma fluidly changed his deflected strike, intended to break the exposed hip, and instead grabbed the back of woman's neck. Throwing himself backward, he let his weight pull the woman in front of him over his head as he fell, shielding him from the elder's own followup strike, and guided the woman to land just behind him, head first body vertical, snapping her neck. 

Continuing his own momentum, Ranma rolled backward over the collapsing new corpse and came to his feet a half dozen yards away from the elder. Ranma got his first good look at the woman as he rose. 

Similar to Cologne and the other elders, this woman resembled nothing so much as a foot high troll, with wrinkly parchment skin and eyes seemingly far to large for her head. A shapeless robe covered whatever body was still left in the miniature person. The surviving three warriors of the elder's party moved to flank Ranma. 

Impossibly, the elders eyes seemed to grow even more as she recognized who she was fighting. "You're that boy of Cologne's from Japan!" she gasped in Japanese. Gathering herself, she spat, "Wasn't it enough to kill the matriarch's heir, Male ! You shall not destroy us, too!" 

"Heh, you and your accursed laws killed my wife, my mother and my best friend. They paralyzed my wife's sister, and destroyed my life, bitch. You ask if it was enough ?" Ranma growled in reply. "If you were all dead, it would not be enough ! Be glad we allow those who surrender to live, unlike you murdering bitches!" 

As they spoke, the elders attention was suddenly distracted by a stream of bullets targeting her. Ranma absently backtracked the fire while the elder spun her staff and deflected them, mainly at Ranma. Damn it, what the hell was Nabiki doing! He had asked her to stay out of this! There she was, halfway down the damn slope, just a couple hundred yards off, behind a boulder. If one of the other warriors took it in her head to go after her ... 

Well, best make use of the distraction she was providing and deal with this group before one of them did something Nabiki would regret. Ranma normally eschewed modern weapons for himself. His body was a more potent weapon than any he could carry, and unlike a weapon it could not be taken away from him, malfunction, or run out of ammunition. Nevertheless, he did enthusiastically adopt a few useful tricks. 

He made use of one now. Gracefully dodging deflected bullets and spinning between the elder and her three remaining warriors, Ranma left a few small egg shaped objects tucked inconspicuously in the belt or sash of the other warriors. They were grenades. Not just any grenades either, as the warriors found out to their dismay. Not coincidentally as Nabiki's magazine ran out of ammo and her fire faltered, the grenades simultaneously exploded. The three warriors suddenly found themselves covered in flaming napalm. Before they could do more than scream, Ranma finished the technique he had primed. His dodges between and around the warriors had been in a spiral pattern, starting a small but specific air flow. A cold ki charged uppercut, counter to the heat from the napalm, triggered a powerful, localized, artificial whirlwind. 

Immediately, the three human torches were sucked up into the storm as a powering source of heat for it. Ranma hadn't been able to approach the elder close enough to plant a grenade on her, but he had other plans. The elder immediately grasped for cold ki herself, and kept on the ground. Ranma had anticipated this, however, and before the elder could more than take a step she was dislodged by a ki blast impacting beneath her feet which threw her up and into the maelstrom. 

Nabiki had apparently swapped magazines, and the next stream of bullets was simply directed into the wind funnel, apparently trusting the powerful storm to pull the bullets into their targets. Ranma added a few vacuum blades to the mix for good measure, then took a moment to look around. 

Behind him, a line of tanks had formed and was advancing up the valley. A number of APCs had pulled behind the tanks and were disgorging troops. There were few warriors still fighting along the slopes of the valley. The situation appeared well in hand. 

The storm dissipated as the tanks and troops charged past him, allowing the no longer flaming bodies it contained to fall to the earth. Ignoring the obviously dead warriors, Ranma advanced on the still living, although badly battered, elder. It looked like she had taken at least one bullet and been grazed by a vacuum blade. 

"You know," Ranma remarked conversationally as he squatted by the still trying to rise elder, "my eldest sister in law was one of the kindest, sweetest people you could ever hope to meet. I don't think she could harm a fly. Despite all the craziness back then, she always had a kind word, a cup of tea, and a willingness to listen to anyone. Do you know what Cologne did to her?" 

Ranma grasped the stunned and wounded woman's neck, and ground a word out between suddenly clenched teeth. "This." With that, he twisted his hand and broke her spine. 

Ranma dropped the elder, turned, and walked out to meet Nabiki. They met at the bottom of the valley slope. "This is finished, let's go," Ranma said. Nabiki nodded, and without a further word being exchanged they left for their camp.

* * *

Cologne scrambled up the hill in the downpour, slipping in the mud. All around her, the din of battle faded in and out of her perception. Panicked people screamed or clutched at her as she passed, only to disappear behind her in the mist and rain. Bullets whizzed overhead, and the sounds of explosions rumbled all around in a continuous din. Incongruously, her recently healed wrist ached from the rain and moisture, broken from her last fight with Ranma, 

They had been ambushed. The first she knew of it, a loudspeaker was blaring a demand for surrender. They had been prepared for such an occurance, of course. She and her warriors could deal with the Chinese army if necessary, at least for long enough for them to escape. Unfortunately, the Chinese army wasn't the only thing attacking them. 

Ranma had come. 

Already, half of her best warriors were down, and Ranma was not being merciful. Cologne knew that she couldn't hope to fight him anymore. Ranma had even gloated that she was the last left, the rest of the refugees were already dead or 'resettled'. 

So, she had left the rest of her escort to delay Ranma, prayed to the spirits of her ancestors, and ran. She only had one chance now, one she was not at all certain would work. If doomed in the present, her only hope was to change the past. She needed the Nanban mirror. She hadn't dared to try using it before. Who knew how it would work since it had been broken and imperfectly mended by that fool Happosai ? She no longer had any option. She had to try. 

Finally, Cologne skidded to a stop by a specific chest that had been carried near the center of her column. Unwilling to spare even a few seconds, she forbore to unlock and open the chest normally, and instead simply struck the lid, shattering it. With speed born of the Amiguriken, Cologne roughly tossed aside artifact after ancient box after precious book, finally coming to the bottom of the chest where a damaged, and thus less valuable, mirror had been packed. 

Pulling out the object of her desire, Cologne gazed briefly at the rain beaded, fragmented image of herself in the broken mirror. In that moment, Cologne allowed all her grief and frustration to come to the fore. It was hard, oh so hard. She had spent generations coming into control of her emotions. Now, though, the magic of the time traveling mirror required her tears. For her people, she simply must cry. Cry for the senseless death around her; cry for her once heir and great granddaughter, dead in a foreign land; cry for the death of her people; and cry for her own stupidity and actions which had brought these events about. 

Tears mingling with the rain, Cologne whispered to her fractured image, "Take me to when I could have prevented this." 

This had to work! Oh please, spirits of my ancestors, let this work! Unfortunately, the spirits of her ancestors had not been with her since the start of this entire fiasco. They still were not. 

Eyes blurred by tears and rain, Cologne was focused on the mirror which had just begin to glow softly. So she did not see a camouflage clad female Ranma fade out of the rain and mist behind her, followed closely by a similarly clad Nabiki. The two youths sported near identical expressions of fanatical hate on their faces. Cologne was soon forced to notice them, though. It was hard to ignore the blast of raw, red, hate powered ki which tore the mirror from her hand, shattering it into a spray of glass fragments which covered the three of them. Ranma's shout "Rage of Dragon's Vengeance" accompanying the technique was also a dead giveaway. 

"Do you like my new ki blast, Cologne ? I made it especially for you." 

Cologne looked up, directly into the muzzle of the grenade launcher and assault rifle carried by Nabiki less than ten feet away. Standing beside her, Ranma was slowly charging yet another ki blast, one which, Cologne could see, would perhaps be her largest ever. Given that Ranma had once literally destroyed a mountain with a ki blast, this was no small thing. Were these children insane? Surely they could not hope to escape Nabiki's grenade from such close quarters, much less Ranma's insanely powerful blast. 

"We couldn't decide which of us had dibs on you, Cologne, so we decided to share," Nabiki glared, and slowly begin tightening her trigger finger. "Whatever happens, you will die from this. We'll see you in hell tonight." 

Cologne blinked. A soft glow was spreading over the small area including the three of them, the area where the fragments of the shattered mirror had fallen. 

A grenade, burst of bullets and beam of ki pass through the area occupied milliseconds ago by Cologne. The huge explosion following the ki blast consumed the smaller explosion from the grenade. The explosion easily dwarfed even those created by the surrounding artillery. A roiling fireball consumed the area where Cologne, Ranma and Nabiki recently stood. However, there were no longer people there to be consumed by the fiery monster, no bodies to lay in the newly created crater, dozens of meters in diameter. 

Left to it's own devices, the cold rain fell impartially, slowly filling the new depression. 

Perhaps the spirits had listened after all.

* * *

Authors notes 

Thanks for pointing out the spelling errors on names last chapter. Automatic spell checkers can be a bugger, too, if you put the wrong correction in their dictionary. My apologies. 

The next chapter or two are still going to be fairly dark and intense, before the focus of this story shifts. Let me know what you think so far !

* * *

Authors notes 

Well here you have Ranma and Nabiki's action for the past few months. The next chapter will bridge between this part of the story and a sudden change of plot direction. Suitable for a change in direction, it will incorperate the views of several characters, instead of just one. 

Constructive criticisms accepted with delight. I'd really like to hear about bits of the story that are confusing, or that more detail needs to be given to the characterizations over here, or that more dialog needs to happen there, etc. Please, I'm begging ya, here ! I'll have a hard time getting better as a writer without such feedback.

* * *

Authors notes 

A little extreme here, but... 

I'm interpreting Ranma and Nabiki as basically fanatics at this point. They only thing they care about is achieving vengeance. This means that they are willing to suicide if they think that they'll take the last of the amazon elders, and the one personally responsible for all their troubles, with them. 

Heck, they might even be eager to suicide. Both Nabiki and Ranma would still feel guilt and grief over the deaths and injuries at the bombed wedding. They might view suicide as a fitting end to their tasks. 

-- Pat 


	3. Interlude

**Interlude**

* * *

Ranma opened her eyes a dozen feet in the air in a mild drizzle. Quickly trying to orient herself, she saw a panda leaping into the air after her. "Boy, you've been fighting like a weak sissy girl," read the sign held in one panda paw. The sign quickly flipped over to read "You need to be prepared for attack at all times!" 

Ranma growled in irritation, and snapped her body into and out of a tight ball, suddenly rotating about her axis. This brought her in line as she fell to meet her still rising father midair. One impossibly fast snap kick later, and she landed on top her unconscious father. This shouldn't have been that easy. Was the old man getting slow ? 

Given a moment to think, Ranma begin to ponder. Where the hell was she ? Unexpectedly, she was not apparently in hell. At least, she didn't think Genma had died in her absence, although it would make sense for the old man to be there as a form of torment. She was still dressed in her combat outfit, and could clearly remember gathering and shooting off a huge ki blast. 

Looking around, Ranma could see she was in a crude campsite, and that there was a large city visible in the distance. Wait a minute! That looked like Nermia! How in the world did she get here? Where was Nabiki, and the old crone? Had she failed? 

Maybe she shouldn't have knocked out her pop so quickly. Oh, well. Might as well go home. Hopefully someone there could tell her what was going on. 

Packing up the camp and putting on her pack, Ranma picked up the wet panda and started trudging toward the Tendo dojo in the rain.

* * *

Nabiki opened her eyes, yawned, and blearily tried to take in her surroundings. This didn't look like hell, this looked like her bedroom. Hell didn't have beds as soft as hers was, not that she had slept in her bed for months. Maybe some tea would help. First, she'd have to get untangled from this damn lumpy assault rifle, though. And why was she wearing muddy boots and fatigues in her bed, much less boots in the house? Hmm, Ranma must have gotten up to work out already. Why had he let her go to bed dressed like this? 

A knock on her door interrupted her muzzy thoughts. "Nabiki, Kasumi sent me to get you up. Breakfast is ready," called a female voice. 

Nabiki was confused, who in the world could that be? Kasumi had sent her? Kasumi was paralyzed, how could she have made breakfast? 

Nabiki finally got the weapon's sling off her shoulder, and stumbled to the door, leaving the it behind. Opening the door and trying to blink away the cobwebs, Nabiki was confronted by an impossible sight. There stood her dead younger sister, Akane, with long, lustrous hair and glowing with health from her normal morning jog. Nabiki did the only thing she could under the circumstances. She fainted. 

Akane blinked in her own confusion as she caught her sister. Why was Nabiki wearing muddy camouflage clothing of all things, and boots in the house?

* * *

Cologne opened her eyes, blinked in confusion, and looked around. From the angle of the sun through the window it was morning. A window? Wait! She was in her own bedroom, in Joketsuzoku! Was this all a dream? No, Cologne could feel the ache in her wrist where it had been broken. It must have worked! Thank you, spirits of my ancestors! Now, to find out when she is and where her earlier self is. 

A short time later, Cologne pogoed out of the village on her staff, passing the spot where the formal challenge log was only now being taken down for storage until the next tournament. Her great granddaughter had been in chase of Ranma for only two weeks! There was still time to catch Shampoo and prevent the events she had seen. 

One thing puzzled Cologne, however. Where was her earlier self? She clearly remembered being in the village on this day in her past, yet her younger self was nowhere to be found. It appeared as if she had in some fashion replaced herself. Shrugging off the mystery for now as an side effect of the mirror being first broken and mended, then shattered and mixed with a huge amount of spiritual energy, Cologne went to find Shampoo.

* * *

Authors notes 

Well, this signals a depature from the earlier parts of the story. The rest of the story will not be nearly as grim. 

Now that I've gotten to this point, I can say a few more things about the story without giving stuff away prematurely. I plan to have the rest of the story deal primarily with the character's internal conflicts. Apropos, I may also change the style of writing a bit. Donno yet. 

What brought this on was my recent interest in several of the recent 'character(s) get a chance to go back and fix their earlier screw ups' stories. It's a fun genre, but there were a couple of things which bugged me about the idea. 

First, may of these stories seem to invoke some form of duex ex machina to get the character(s) back in time. I wanted to see if I could make a semi-plausable foundation for this premise (roughly) within cannon. 

Second, many of these stories also seem to be an excuse to deal with the events of Ranma with one or more characters 'all growed up', as it were. Well, what if the characters who went back weren't necessarily any more mature? In fact, what if instead of being more mature, the characters were less mature, instead? 

So, here we have a considerably darker Ranma and Nabiki. Ones with lots of hanging emotional issues, who have, in fact, spent the last several months becoming obsessed killers who were willing to suicide if it meant achieving vengeance. Ranma certainly has lots of unresolved feelings for Akane, and neither Ranma nor Nabiki really care that much about each other. Nabiki has a lot of guilt regarding her part in the disasterous wedding, so she might not want to stand in Akane's way. Yet, Ranma and Nabiki are married, sort of, or they will be, or would be, or something. For that matter, would Akane even fall for a Ranma who is a killer like she did for the lovable jerk we all knew? 

What is worse, there are also demands of honor. Cologne is still in her trap as far as the Amazon law is concerned, and Shampoo is still obligated to carry it out. When Ranma and Nabiki come from, they are honor bound into a feud with the Amazons. Does it still hold? Will they want it to hold? What about the marriage obligations Genma made for Ranma? What about his seppeku pledge with Nodoka? 

So, tune in next chapter, to the Path of Honor. 


	4. The Path of Honor

**The Path of Honor**

* * *

It was a rainy, dreary day in Nermia. That morning the clouds had opened overhead, and poured down water in cold sheets. Those hearty souls venturing out to the market under the cover on umbrellas were treated to an unusual sight. 

A petite, yet well endowed, young redheaded girl made her way through the sparse crowds. By herself, she wasn't that unusual. Red hair in an obviously Japanese person deserved some comment, but perhaps she had an American father or something. The grace with which she flowed between the people and obstacles on the street was notable, but there were many obscure martial arts masters in the area equally graceful, or nearly so at any rate. The large traveling pack on her back was oversized for her petite frame, but some small strength could again be explained as a result of training. 

No, what was unusual was twofold. First, the obvious: the unconscious 200 kilo giant panda she as carrying, slung impossibly over her shoulder and pack. Never mind that the panda was easily twice the weight of a normal panda. Never mind that the panda would be over 2 meters tall if it stood on its hind legs. What was impossible was that it was being carried by a slip of a girl who would be barely 50 kilos when soaking wet. Well, she was soaking wet, but still, no one should have been able to carry something that bulky, much less carry it as easily and casually as this girl was doing. 

The second unusual thing, things actually, were the girls eyes. Few people actually saw them, buried as they were underneath pack and panda, and further hidden by bushy bangs, drooping in the rain. However, those few who did meet her eyes universally recoiled, dropped their gaze and hurriedly moved out of the girl's path. Something in her eyes was terribly terribly frightening. Perhaps not for what was there, but for what was missing. If anyone had been near the American army bases during the so called Vietnam war, they might have seen this same gaze on the visage of a man just returned from years of jungle warfare. It was the gaze of a person burned nearly soulless from death seen and death dealt, someone who cared little anymore for human life. 

Eventually the girl made her way to her destination. Not bothering to opening the gates of the Tendo compound, the girl bounced lightly over the top of the wall, panda and all, and alit with a light tip tap on the far side. 

Inside the house, the patriarch of the family, Tendo Soun, had just called a meeting with two of his three daughters. Nabiki, his middle daughter, had evidently fainted upon waking late that morning, and was still sleeping. His eldest daughter Kasumi had, however, assured him that Nabiki would be alright after settling the girl back into her bed. 

Nevertheless, the news he bore was too important to wait. Nabiki would have to learn of it later when she awoke. 

Akane, his youngest daughter, had just screamed "An arranged marriage! You can't do that to us!" when he heard the door open. 

"It must be Saotome!" Soun exclaimed, rising from his cushion at the table. "Saotome my friend!" he yelled in excitement and ran down the hall, followed at a more sedate pace by his daughters. "You're here!" 

"Taidama!" called a young female voice from in the entryway. "Do you have any hot water, father?" 

Rounding the corner, the Tendo family patriarch was treated to the unusual sight described above. The panda carrying young girl was kicking off slightly oversized slippers in a very familiar fashion, as if she expected a specific spot for her things. "I guess let me carry pops upstairs first, okay? Hey! You look a lot better then when I left." 

Gathering his wits (an amazing feat in itself) and his dignity, Soun put on a stern visage and demanded "And who might you be, young lady?" 

"What, don't you recognize your own son-in-law? You're the one who forced this marriage," quipped Ranma. 

On her shoulder, the quiescent giant panda stirred, and held up a sign which had the scribbled on it, "Ouch. What hit me?" 

Unfortunately for the panda no one noted his sign, because just then Kasumi, followed a moment later by Akane, rounded the corner as well. 

At the sight of Kasumi, the young girl promptly dropped the panda in shock, fortunately on his head, knocking him silly again. "Kasumi! What happened? You're walking again! This is great!" 

This puzzling outburst was followed a moment later by the girls high pitched shriek on seeing Akane, "You're Alive!" 

Promptly Akane found herself caught up in an unbreakably tight squeeze, her face buried in a shock of red hair. This despite the fact that a still puzzled Soun was standing in a narrow doorway directly between her and where the girl wearing the huge backpack had been standing moments before. "You're alive! You're alive! Oh thank the kami! You're alive!" sang the young girl over and over as a helpless Akane was whirled dizzyingly around and around the hall and living room, slowly turning blue in the face. 

Eventually, the scene was broken up by a dry voice coming from the stairwell. "Ranma, you're going to kill her again if you don't let go," stated a kimono clad Nabiki in her driest voice. 

"Eep!" gaped Ranma, dropping Akane and springing away. "I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. Are you alright? I'm sorry. I'm ... uh, Nabiki?" Suddenly, a worried Ranma realized who had just spoken. "This isn't what it looks like!" 

"Whatever. Come on Ranma. We have to talk." Nabiki seized a paralyzed Ranma's arm, and dragged him, er her, toward the dojo. 

Back in the house, Soun blinked. "What just happened?"

* * *

Drifting down a quiet residential street, a lilting voice was heard speaking the liquid, singing tones of Mandarin. Despite the musical tones of the language, the speaker sounded distinctly peeved. Any who understood the language would have heard this: "Great Grandmother, I still don't understand what we are doing. If you know where the outsider woman will be, why can't we just go there? And who are we going to see now? And why do you have to be here, anyway? Don't you trust me to be able to hunt her down myself?" 

Walking down the street, the speaker could be seen to be a curvaceous young Chinese woman with unusual long purple hair. Beside her, a person so unusual as to appear almost non-human employed an equally unusual form of locomotion. Appearing like nothing so much as a foot high miniature troll with long white hair longer than itself, the person bounced easily along pogo like balanced atop a three foot high wooden staff. 

Cologne shook her head and forebore another attempt to explain to Shampoo. Even the bits of the story she understanded enough to relate were complicated, and by now Shampoo had been so indoctrinated in the belief of Amazon superiority that much of what she said the younger woman simply dismissed out of hand. It was perhaps this same belief which led in part to the disaster before. Cologne could now see that the training she gave Shampoo in these areas would have to be drastically adjusted. Well, there would be plenty of opportunity to start humbling her heir on this trip. 

Cologne waved her heir into silence as they walked, and considered her options for the umpteenth time. The was she saw it, she had three choices to try to avert the upcoming disaster. 

First, she could try to kill Ranma and Nabiki outright. Unfortunately, anything short of several of the elders working together would be insufficient to kill Ranma, and as long as he protected Nabiki the same applied to her. Getting that fracticious lot to agree on anything was hard, much less something as seemingly trivial as rousing themselves for a mere male on only her say so. Besides, Cologne still had some fondness for the embittered youths, and she has to admit, if only to herself, that a good part of the blame for their attitudes rested with her. 

Second, she could simply bring Shampoo to heel and return to the village, hoping that if unprovoked Ranma and Nabiki would leave them alone this time. This, too, was unacceptable. Cologne needed some measure of certainty of survival, not some vague hope. Further, this still left her great granddaughter with a legal obligation to fulfill, one with terrible consequences should she fail to do so. 

Third, she could try to reconcile with Ranma and Nabiki and defuse the situation. This would be, at best, hard. The youths were more likely to try to kill her on sight than listen to her; they had precious little reason to trust her. The would likely react especially badly if she and Shampoo showed up immediately on the heels of Ranma's arrival at the Tendos, tomorrow, as she hoped to do. Fortunately she had one small advantage, knowing where and when things would happen and being able to charter a flight to Japan had allowed her and Shampoo to move far faster than Shampoo had been able to track Ranma the first time. 

As she saw it, the third option was the only realistic hope. Once she was able to approach them, she hoped that the offerings she brought would both reconcile them to her and provide a solution to Shampoo's legal dilemma. However, she would need help to be able to approach the young Saotome couple peacefully. That's why they were here. 

Reaching the correct address, Cologne approached the doorway of a small but respectable house, followed by Shampoo. Cologne jumped down from her perch to free her staff for another task: reaching up to knock on the door. 

The door opened shortly, revealing an attractive middle aged woman with auburn hair clad in a kimono. To the woman's credit, she did not react to the unusual appearance of her two visitors, but instead merely asked politely, "May I help you ?" 

Cologne gives her most pleasant smile (still a very frightening sight), and responded in flawless Japanese. "Saotome Nodoka? I am elder Cologne, Matriarch of the Joketsuzoku village of Chinese Amazons, and this is my heir and great granddaughter Shampoo. Please forgive us for intruding on you, but we have news of your child, Ranma. Further, we would like to request your aid in concluding a matter of honor between your child and my heir." 

Any reservations of Nodoka's were swept aside by these words. "Ranma? You know Ranma? Of course, by all means come in!" Leading her guests into her small and sparse, yet clean, living room, Nodoka saw her quests seated. "May I offer you some tea?" 

"I would be grateful, Saotome-dono." 

In the kitchen, Nodoka nearly bubbled over with excitement while the water heated. They knew her son! Perhaps she would soon be reunited with Ranma! That girl was quite attractive, and the older lady had introduced herself as an older relative concerned about a matter of honor. She could imagine what must have happened. Her son must be very manly indeed! Of course, her son could not be allowed to marry a gaijin, but perhaps the girl would be willing to be a mistress. 

With effort, Nodoka calmed herself as she placed the tea set, kettle and some snacks on a tray. Walking out into the sitting room, she saw her guests properly served, and demurely settled on a cushion across the low table from them. 

Finally unable to container herself any longer, Nodoka blurted out, "Please forgive my rudeness, elder, but what can you tell me about my son?" 

Cologne smiled. She might indeed be able to recruit this woman to her aid. "Recently, your son come to my village in search of help for a recent, unfortunate occurrence. While there, he participated in our annual martial arts tournament, beating our champion, my great granddaughter. Unfortunately, this circumstance created its own set of problems. It is my hope we can resolve them with your aid." 

"Nevertheless, I can tell you that your child holds honor dearly and had a good heart, even though he is brash, insensitive and prone to act without thinking. Despite this, he has grown to be one of the, if not the, premier martial artist of his generation." 

Nokoda sighed and released some of the tension she was holding. Perhaps her brash decision to allow Genma to take Ranma had turned out alright after all. "You spoke of a problem to resolve, Elder." 

"Forgive me Saotome-dono, if I speak frankly. There are two problems, inextricably intertwined. You see, perhaps unfortunately, we have laws of great antiquity which were designed to keep our village fighters as the strongest in the world. If a outsider male defeats one of our warriors, she must marry him, if an outsider female defeats one of us, she must be killed. Because of your child's defeat of my great-granddaughter and his second problem, both situations apply." 

"Excuse me, but how can both situations apply to my son?" 

There was a brief pause while Cologne examined the Saotome matriarch. Meanwhile, Shampoo frantically flipped through a Japanese to Chinese dictionary, trying in vain to catch up to the conversation. She wondered why Cologne kept referring to a son? Did she have the words for son and daughter confused? 

"Saotome-dono, this may be hard for you to accept, but do you believe in magic?" Cologne slowly pulled a small opaque plastic jar with a wide screw on lid out of her robes, which she opened and sets on the table with obvious care. Somehow, the faint drone of background noise always present in a large city faded away. A cloud choose that moment to drift across the sun, drawing the room into uneasy darkness. Yet, somehow enough light remained to leave the ordinary appearing jar illuminated, almost glowing. The sole spot of light made it stand out against the suddenly drab appearance of the room. Drawn by the unsettling conviction in Cologne's voice, Nodoka's gaze slowly fixed on the jar as if hypnotized. 

Without waiting for an answer, Cologne continued, "We live near a cursed training ground called Jusenkyo, at which your husband had inadvisably brought your son to train. It is a group of over 100 different cursed springs, which have a rather unsettling effect should you happen to fall into one. This water was from the spring of drown cat." Colognes hand, now held above the open jar of water, opened to reveal a small cricket. The cricket had time for a single, forlorn sounding cheep before it was dropped. 

Nodoka's eyes tracked the cricket as it falls from Colognes hand, seemingly in slow motion. It raised but a tiny splash as it disappeared beneath the water, the jar was just large enough to hold it. For a second, nothing happened, and Nodoka began to slowly expel a breath she didn't know she was holding. 

Quite suddenly, the jar was burst asunder from something far too large to be contained inside it. Nodoka and Shampoo both shrieked and jumped backward. Revealed on the table where the jar was sat a small, wet, sable furred cat. 

Cologne reached out and took the cat into her arms. "The transformation is temporarily reversible with hot water," a splash of tea left Cologne holding a cricket again. Cologne smiled fondly at the cheeping insect in her hand. "Until the cursed individual is next exposed to cold water." A brief application of cold ki and another splash left her holding a purring cat. 

"Great-grandmother! What you do?" Shampoo exclaimed from the corner in broken Japanese. Cologne again waved her into silence. 

"This, this happened to my son?" Nodoka whispered in a small, terrified voice from near the wall. Hesitantly she approached the table again, and tentatively touched the purring kitten. "My son turns into a, a cat? Is there a cure?" 

"No, Saotome-dono, not a cat. May the kami preserve us all if he should turn into a cat," Cologne responded cryptically. "There are over 100 springs there, after all, each different. There is a cure, and I journeyed here in part to offer one to him. I hope that doing so would go some way toward making amends. Unfortunately, we require your help to approach your son. Due to the problems I mentioned, your son is unlikely to trust us. In fact, he is more likely to try to kill us on sight, and I fear he is capable of doing so." 

To shocked to ask any more questions at the moment, Nodoka could only stare at the cat and nod. Abstractly, she wondered to herself 'amends for what?'

* * *

"Isn't it great, Nabiki! Kasumi's alright! And Akane! Akane's alive! Akane's alive!" Ranma had recovered much of her exuberance, and was literally bouncing off the dojo walls and ceiling, still clad in her camouflage fatigues. "That means Mom's alright! And Ucchan, too! Akane's alive! Akane's alive! Oh, man I can't wait to talk to that tomboy again!" 

A kimono clad Nabiki interrupted when she was finally able to catch up to Ranma, and dumped the kettle she held over the redhead. "You are forgetting about a few complications, Husband," Nabiki warned as Ranma suddenly grew into his male frame, causing Ranma to loosen and readjust several Velcro closures on her, now his, fatigues. 

"Huh? Oh, um, yeah, I guess." Ranma suddenly looked a little downcast. 

'Now why did I remind him of that? It's not like I care for him, even if the sex was good,' Nabiki pondered. Well, time to divert Ranma onto something else. Nervously rubbing the ring on her hand, she continued, "Let's not forget that those Amazon bitches are also out there again. Your mother is still going to want to enforce the seppeku pact, Ukyo and Ryoga are going to be hunting you down. Who knows what our fathers will do this time? And Happosai is still out there somewhere." 

Ranma's eyes flashed at the mention of the Amazons, but then grew steadily more and more depressed as Nabiki expounded on her litany of problems. Turning to his first, easiest, and to his mind most pressing concern, Ranma asked "So, what're we going to do about the Amazons this time? We can't attack using the same trick you did before." Ranma's voice hardened as he continued, "At least I can kill Shampoo the first time she shows up." 

Nabiki snorted internally. Typical of Ranma. Instead of dealing with the emotional issues, turn to a fight. Well, since it was the Amazons he was talking about, she was okay with that. How could they attack the Amazons this time around? Perhaps some of the other high powered martial artists around could be found and coerced into an alliance, or ... Nabiki's train of thought ground to a halt as she was struck by an unsettling realization, "Does the clan feud with the Amazons apply back in this time?" she wondered aloud, suddenly distraught. 

Ranma looked at Nabiki, stunned, his face frozen in a comical 'O' of surprise. Finally unfreezing, he turned away and muttered. "This time travel crap maybe isn't all it's made out as, is it?" 

For the moment, Ranma and Nabiki settled back into the comfortable habits of thought from the last several months. Something occured to Ranma. "Heh, maybe I should kill Ryoga, too. The pig. I'll take his 'Ranma, prepare to die' crap and shove it up his ass. And man, I look forward to meeting that asshole Kuno again, a shattered hand or shoulder or leg bone would look good on him. Keep him from ever picking up that damn sword again, too." 

"Whatever, just make certain they attack you first so I can get you out of trouble," Nabiki responds. "And just for fun, I think I'd like to handle the Kuno bitch myself." 

Recalling their present dilemma, Ranma glanced back at where Nabiki was nervously rubbing her wedding ring, a habit she had picked up 'to remind her of why we're doing this,' she had once told him. Quietly, he fingered his own ring, braided into his hair where it wouldn't get lost whenever he changed sexes and finger sizes. 'What the hell do we do now?' he wondered to himself. 'I mean, Akane's alive! And I kinda lo ... lo ... love her. But Nabiki and I ...' 

Atypically, Ranma gathered his courage and faced a non fight related issue head on. "So, since this is the past, are we married, or not?" 

"I, I don't know," Nabiki haltingly admited. "Damn Amazons and their damn magic." 

Silence reigned in the dojo for a few minutes. The tension was finally broken by a knock on the door. "Ranma! Nabiki! Someone is here to see you!" 

Ranma and Nabiki exchanged puzzled glances.

* * *

Earlier, inside the house, a gasping Akane had finally picked herself up off the floor with Kasumi's help. Kasumi turned to Soun as she assisted Akane onto the couch and asked "Who was that, father? Nabiki called her Ranma, but you said that Ranma was a boy?" 

Despite her rough handling, Akane couldn't but help but be relieved. She could tell that this girl Ranma hadn't been trying to hurt her or anything. And importantly, if Ranma was a girl, there couldn't be a marriage! Besides, Ranma had seemed incredibly glad to see her for some reason. Maybe they could be friends. Ranma had to be incredibly good at the Art to put on the display she did. Maybe she could learn from her, or at least have a sparring partner! 

Soun was still standing in the hallway, gaping like one of the koi in his pond. Who was that girl? Hadn't Genma said that he had a son? And where was Genma, anyway? 

Soun's internal dilemma was broken by a large paw tapping him on the shoulder. Woodenly turning around, he beheld the huge panda the girl had impossibly carried into his home standing on its hind legs. 

"AAUUUGGH!" screamed Soun, and ran. "It's a wild panda!" Mercifully, his screams were cut short as he ran into the opposite wall of the living room at speed, stunning himself. 

"I'll handle it!" A recovered Akane jumped up and seized the low table in the living room, preparatory to bashing the panda on the head. 

Quickly, the panda forestalled the attack by holding up a sign in its paw. "Hello Soun, old friend!" the sign read. The sign flipped over to the other side, which read "I can explain everything." Another flip impossibly showed a third sign, reading, "Can I have some hot water please?" 

"Why, what a wonderfully trained panda!" Kasumi exclaimed happily. "Certainly you can have some hot water, Panda-san!" 

The panda growfed happily, and peacefully followed Kasumi into the kitchen on it's hind legs. Somehow it made the sign it was carrying disappear. 

Akane blinks, and dropped the table back into it's spot. Unfortunately, a prone and stunned Soun happened to be occupying the spot at the time. Fortunately, he was already stunned, so the table only insured that his unconsciousness would be extended a short while. 

A few moments later a splash was heard from the kitchen, followed by a very expressive "Oh my!"

* * *

"So that's the way of it." Soun knelt across the table from his old friend, once again human. Tears were streaming from both their faces. "A martial artist's path is fraught with peril. Now, the true horror of Jusenkyo is revealed." 

"So that girl was really your son, Saotome-san?" Kasumi asks as she politely set down the tray of sake her father had requested. "She seemed very familiar with us." 

"Well, all the better to promote the union between our houses, eh, old friend? I knew the boy would come through once his responsibilities were explained!" Genma exclaimed triumphantly. 

Akane was simply fuming. That girl really was a boy! It seemed so strange, but she had seen her father's so called friend change back and forth from panda to human. And her father and this stranger were insisting on the marriage! The boy was certain to pick her. She, uh, he, had hugged her immediately when he saw her, not even waiting for an introduction. He was worse than Kuno! She wasn't going to marry some sex changing pervert! 

A knock on the door interrupted the scene. Taking the opportunity to get out of the room Akane called "I'll get it", and went to answer the door. Opening the door, she saw an attractive middle aged woman with a startlingly similar appearance to the girl Ranma, a buxom Chinese teenager her own age with weird purple hair, and, "A Troll! Agghh!" 

Cologne sighed and hopped forward, rapping Akane sharply on the head. "Mind your manners, girl. You'd be glad to look half so good when you've seen as many generations as I have." 

"Excuse me," Nodoka interrupted with a slight frown for Akane's and Cologne's behavior, "but is there a Saotome Genma or Saotome Ranma here? I'm Saotome Nodoka, Ranma's mother, and this is Elder Cologne, matriarch of the Chinese Amazons and her great-granddaughter and heir Shampoo. Cologne would like to see both Ranma and your sister Nabiki, and I would dearly love to see my son." 

"Why, what a lot of visitors we're getting today!" Kasumi smiled from where she had appeared beside Akane. "I'll go get Ranma and Nabiki. Akane, will you please show Saotome-dono and our other guests to the living room?" 

"Right, right," a peeved and sore headed Akane muttered. Great, could her day get any worse? 

Back in the living room, Genma had suddenly gone pale upon hearing the conversation down the hallway. "Soun, my friend, Nodoka mustn't find us, it would mean our lives!" he whispered. With that, he splashed himself with a handy glass of water, seized another bucket full of water conveniently placed for dramatic use by Jusenkyo cursed characters, and dashed for the dojo. 

Genma reached the dojo just as Kasumi had knocked on the door and called "Ranma! Nabiki! Someone is here to see you!" Gently moving Kasumi out of the way, Genma flung open the door and threw the bucket of water on top of Ranma, who was approaching the door with Nabiki. 

"What'd you do that for, Oyaji?" a suddenly female Ranma growled, her eyes growing dark. Faster than Genma had ever seen her move before, she seized the panda by the throat and impossibly lifted it into the air. "You didn't have to get Nabiki wet too. Don't you have any concern for others?" Ranma punctuated these statements by shaking Genma-panda like a rag doll. 

"Stop wasting time, Ranma. Just knock the old idiot out or something. I'd like to see who's here asking for us." Nabiki chimed in coldly as she ineffectually tried to wring water out of her kimono. "I'll come up with something special for him later." 

Nabiki then turned to her sister, ignoring Ranma as she dealt out an unsettling amount of animal abuse behind her. To Kasumi's amazement, Nabiki's face underwent a startling transformation, blossoming into a warm smile. "Who is it, Kasumi? And, if I haven't said it yet today, I'm glad to see you, too." 

Kasumi couldn't help but smile back at her sometimes cold sister, despite the disturbing thumps, yelps, and moans from inside the dojo. Every once in a while, a glimpse of a sign could be seen through the door, saying things like "It's for your own good, boy!" or "Seppuku pact!" or "Waahh! I don't want to die!" or just plain "Ouch!" 

"It's Ranma's mother, and some Amazon visitors from China." 

A cry of "Amazons!" bursts in stereo from Ranma and Nabiki. Ranma suddenly appeared in the door, matching Nabiki's suddenly hard, hate filled expression. The sudden reaction made Kasumi gasp and step back. 

"Shit! Akane and Mom are in there with them! I won't let them die again!" Ranma covered the distance between the dojo and the house in a single leap, straight over Kasumi's head. 

"Goddamnit! " Somehow, Nabiki had produced an assault rifle (!) from somewhere in her kimono, and despite the garment's restrictions, was nearly keeping up with the petite redhead. 

Dazedly, Kasumi wondered at Nabiki's weapon. Weren't those illegal? 

Ranma and Nabiki hit the wall on either side of the door, Ranma gathering some strange glowing energy in his off hand, and Nabiki leveling her rifle at the doorway. On some unseen signal, Ranma flung back the door and leapt for the interior, but an unexpected obsticle stopped her in mid leap. Ranma caught herself on the door frame and fell unceremoniously on the porch floor in front of her mother, who was standing just on the other side of the door, hand still reaching the for the handle. 

"Gah!" was all the redhead could say. 

"Ranma! So it's true! Are you alright? I'm so glad to see you!" Nodoka exclaimed, and rapidly stepped forward and knelt beside her child, gathering her in a hug. 

"Gah!" Ranma said again, subjected to an unexpected glomp. 

Fortunately, Nabiki was still able to speak, and swung her rifle to cover the inside of the room. "Auntie! Imoto-chan! Quickly! Get away from them!" 

"Wait!" Nodoka spoke from underneath Nabiki, while pushing her weapon out of line. "Please don't attack Elder Cologne or Shampoo. They requested that I intercede for them. They have given their word they will not attack. Please hear them out." 

Ranma used the opportunity to wiggle free of Nodoka and slipped past Nabiki and her mother into the room, carefully staying out of Nabiki's line of fire. Indeed, she could see that Akane was okay, although obviously flustered, confused and rapidly approaching anger. Soun was still seated at the table, where he had been when Cologne and Shampoo had been announced. He had stopped weeping, however his eyes were wide and sweat poured off his temples. 

Placing herself between Akane and the table at which Cologne and Shampoo were seated, Ranma glanced back and forth between her mother and the peacefully seated Amazons. Finally Ranma broke the silence, "Mom, are you certain?" 

Shampoo choose this moment to exercise her broken Japanese. "It true. Shampoo not want to leave cowardly outsider girl alone, but great grandmother not let carry out kiss of death for now. Does stupid girl not trust Amazon elder?" she huffed. 

Ranma and Nabiki both favored the young Amazon with an angry and distrustful gaze. They shared a more expressive glance between themselves before relaxing minutely. 

Freed from the concern of immediate combat, Nabiki, always a little quicker on the uptake, realized something. "Wait," she said, lowering the aim of the blatantly illegal firearm, "Auntie, you already knew about Ranma?" 

"Of course she did child," Cologne rasped from her seat. "How did you expect that I talked her into this?" This meeting had gone about as well as she had expected, but she had to move quickly to capitalize on this opportunity. "I do have something to say to you which you'll want to hear." 

"Yeah, whatever old ghoul. Be quick about it." Ranma growled. 

"First, this is for you." Cologne produced a several gallon wooden cask from somewhere, and placed it on top of the low table. The cask was marked with the characters Spring of Drowned Man. "Second," Cologne scooted back from the table, and abased herself, "please accept my abject apologies for the actions of myself and my heir which led to the current situation. I truly regret causing your families the pain and suffering I did." 

Ranma and Nabiki could only gape, nonplussed, at the diminutive elder. This was not at all what they had expected. Shampoo, too, sat shocked at the behavior of her great-grandmother. This was not how a proud Amazon warrior was to act, was it? 

After a short while, Cologne pulled herself up with a small sigh. It was too much to expect that the embittered youths would react graciously to such a sudden change. It would be enough for the moment if they simply did not attack, more would come in time. 

"Third, I expect that the rest of you would like to hear a full explanation of what is going on, and Ranma and Nabiki would like to hear my idea for untangling the legal impasse which caused such pain to them before." 

Cautiously, the Saotome's and Tendo's gather in the room and seated themselves, minus Ranma and Nabiki, who stood distrustfully near the entrys to the room, and a battered panda outside the house, currently whimpering as it clumsily tried to wrap bandages about itself.

* * *

Seated around the low table in the living room, the Tendos, minus Nabiki, and Saotome Nodoka prepared to hear their Chinese guest's story. Nabiki and onna-Ranma hovered suspiciously near the outside exits to the room. 

"Are you really a boy?" Akane broke the silence with what was, to her, the most important issue. Looking back over her shoulder, she could see the very feminine, petite redheaded girl standing near the hallway. Even with the demonstration of the elder Saotome's curse, she hoped that there was not going to be a forced marriage. 

Suddenly given reason to give her attention to Akane, Ranma's face underwent a transformation just like Nabiki's had when speaking with Kasumi. The angry, suspicious glare she had been favoring the Amazon visitors with melted into a warm, sunny smile directed toward the black haired girl. Cold agate blue eyes suddenly warmed from icy winter to a sunny spring day. Akane nearly gasped at the warmth of the expression. Did someone feel that way about her? 

Realizing what Akane had asked, Ranma glanced away and scratched the base of her pigtail nervously. A slight blush favored her cheeks along with her nearly shy statement, "Eh, um, yeah, I am. Sorry about this." 

Akane shook herself away with the inadvertently voiced realization, "Oh no! Now daddy is going to insist on this marriage!" 

"Would it be so bad?" Ranma glanced back at Akane. 

Forgetting that the marriage had not yet been finalized, Akane burst out "But you're part girl! I can't marry a girl!" Her eyes narrowed. "Any you felt me up, too! You pervert!" 

The rest of the family and guests watched this interchange with interest. Nabiki eyes were hooded and her face drawn, even as her gaze never left the Amazons from where she stood near the porch door. 'What's Ranma doing! I'm the one married to him! Or, or am I? Do I want to be?' 

Nodoka looked on with pride and happiness, and some worry. 'Oh! Even as a girl, my son is manly! I wonder what happened between him and elder Cologne, though? The elder never really explained, and Ranma seems so angry. And the other daughter, Nabiki. She seems equally angry, and, almost ... jealous? Oh! My son is so manly!' 

Kasumi looked on with interest. 'I wonder what happened to little sister? She seemed so happy to see me. I've not seen her that happy for years. Now, though, she seems so hard. Wherever did she get a machine gun? She could get in real trouble with that! And who is this Ranma? I'd best learn more about her, or him, if one of us will have to marry him.' 

Soun grasped like a drowning intellect for one of the few lifesaving tidbits of these events he felt capable of comprehending. 'Ranma seems to be very fond of Akane, but he and Nabiki had worked so well together. The future of the schools is assured!' 

Shampoo's thoughts were a jumble. 'I'm certain I heard correctly that time. That cowardly outsider girl claimed to be a boy! If this is true ... Well, the panda was really an older man. Does this mean I have a husband now? Is this why great-grandmother came with me?' 

Outside, a panda was just beginning to grasp essential facts. 'Nodoka knows about the boy's curse, and she's not going to make us seppeku? This means the families can be joined!' Shortly, it waddled off in search of hot water. 

Ranma blushed again at Akane's accusation, and responded remarkably calmly. "Yeah, well, I'm sorry about that. It's just that I was really glad to see you again. You see, you were dead, or well, uh," Ranma flushed even more in the face of Akane's obvious disbelief. Even she realized how ridiculous she sounded. 

Cologne chose this moment to interrupt. "What Ranma means is that he, Nabiki, and I are from a future nearly two years from now. A rather grim future, I fear." 

The rest of the room turned it's attention to Cologne. She spoke calmly and neutrally, almost apologetically in parts, yet the words she said cast a chill pall over the room. "In this future, Akane, you and Ranma were affianced and, although neither of you liked to admit it, in love. Unfortunately, due to some circumstances which I am partly responsible for, our laws also stated that Ranma and Shampoo were married. So, when Akane and Ranma's wedding was to occur, Shampoo felt herself forced to kill her rival. Rivals, actually. Due to Genma's stupidity there were several engagements for Ranma. Since my duties as matriarch encompass that of the chief enforcer of our law, when Shampoo acted I was also forced to intervene." 

"The end result of this was that you Akane-san, you, Saotome-dono, and Ranma's best childhood friend and sometime fiancee Kujoni Ukyo were all killed at the wedding by Shampoo. Shampoo herself was killed by Ranma. You Kasumi-san, were gravely injured by my hand. Because of this, Ranma and Nabiki swore vengeance on us, and had essentially succeeded in destroying or disbanding my people when I used a damaged artifact in a last ditch effort to come back to now and prevent this. Due to the damage to the artifact and other complicating factors, all three of us traveled here instead of just myself." 

Akane, perhaps more than any other member of the audience, was struck by this recitation. This was unreal, she still wasn't entirely certain that Ranma was a boy, but 'I was in love, with her, uh, him? And she,' Akane glanced at Shampoo, 'killed me? I couldn't be in love with her, uh, him, could I? And no way could that bimbo be good enough to beat me!' 

Cologne let her words settle amidst her shocked audience for a short time, and then turned to Nodoka. "Saotome-dono, please forgive me for being blunt, but I must request a favor." 

Nodoka eyed the amazons with a new wariness, but eventually nodded. "It is in part your future self's dying wish that drove Ranma and Nabiki to their actions. I ask that you accept my personal apologies." Again, she abased herself, this time toward the Saotome matriarch. 

Turning then toward Soun, Cologne similarly addressed the other responsible clan head, using the term responsible loosely, of course. "Tendo-san, in light of your future self's justifiable anger toward us, I must similarly beg forgiveness from you. If you would allow me to make amends, I have an offer for you and Happosai's other former student. Your former master is about to escape his prison in a few months. I can prevent this." 

Nodoka graciously indicated that Cologne should resume her seat with a small smile. "Given everything you've done for us now, how could I do otherwise? I'm certain Tendo-san agrees with me." 

Soun nodded, but shuddered, "Don't mention the master's name! Please!" 

Ranma and Nabiki were stunned. Nabiki dropped her assault rifle with a clatter, and slid down the wall to plop on the floor. Ranma only gaped, stunned, at the sudden change. Their parents couldn't just accept this! Sure, they hadn't actually been through these events yet, but still, how could they forgive the Amazon bitches? Yet, there in front of them was the irrefutable evidence. 

In a single stroke, Cologne had removed most of the justification for any further actions on their part. If they had had any purpose in their lives for the past year, a reason for living at all, this had been it. Now, in a moment, it was gone, pulled from underneath them like a rug. Laid atop all the other changes since their arrival, they suddenly felt lost, adrift, and alone. 

Gathering her scattered wits, Nabiki tried to rally. With a half hearted sneer, she said "Why should we accept this? Because you offered a cure? How do we know it's not some kind of trap? Maybe it's something to get Ranma to go back to China with you, or something meant to kill us. And what about Shampoo? By your law doesn't she still have to try to kill Ranma?" 

"I assure you that the cure is real," Cologne responded. "Although you must be careful to only use it when in your uncursed form, lest the curses mix instead of cancel." 

Genma, who had just regained his human form in the kitchen, typically only heard what he wanted to hear in his greed. Springing from the door to the kitchen he cried "A cure!" and grabbed the cask of water from the low table. Before a kneeling Cologne or stunned Ranma could react, Genma had broken the top of the cask and dumped the contents over himself. 

A dancing, exuberant, wet Genma exhibited a distinct lack of pandaness. He even went so far as to dump on himself whatever other water he could reach in the living room. 

The room erupted into chaos. 

Cologne struck a precise pressure point on the back of Genma's neck, paralyzing him, too late. Nodoka, Ranma, Cologne, and Nabiki were all screaming at Genma. 

Cologne was suddenly terrified, and livid. That was her solution the idiot had just used! That cask had been her passport to end the feud, to seek Ranma and Nabiki's renouncement of vengeance, if not outright forgiveness, and most importantly her way out of the trap of law that had engulfed her before. With it, she could see redheaded outsider 'girl' 'killed', so to speak, thus satisfying the letter, if not the spirit, of the law. Given Ranma's dragon whisker curse of hair growth, she could have even taken the 'girls' scalp as 'proof'. Without that cask ... 

Nodoka was bitterly disappointed in her husband, and angry. That was her son's cure! Without it, her son might be condemned to spend his life as a her! She might have to enforce the seppeku pact! 

Ranma was seriously contemplating murdering her father. That idiot had been the ultimate source of most of her problems, and now his greed has just cost her the cure, again! The only thing really holding her back at the moment was that her mother was there, the moment she got the idiot away, though ... For the moment she was contenting herself with throwing the paralyzed idiot repeated into the wall. 

Nabiki finally had a place to release her tension. That asshole! How the hell could he do this, now! Ranma would be crushed. She wouldn't blame Ranma one bit if she wanted to kill the bastard. It was even looking like Cologne had been sincere, and now the whole damn cycle might repeat itself. 

Akane finally couldn't stand it anymore, and threw her tea onto Ranma. Her flinch as an apparently oblivious Ranma transformed into a black haired, handsome, male form went entirely unnoticed. It was true! No wonder Ranma was so angry! She really couldn't blame him. How could that idiot do such a thing! Besides, his male form was kind of cute. 'Cute? Where did that come from? He's a pervert and a jerk! Right?' 

Shampoo jerked in shock at finally seeing Ranma's male form. It was true! The outsider girl really was a boy! Finally, she realized what she had to do. "Wo Ai Ni" she exclaimed, and threw herself at Ranma, intending to glomp her new husband. 

"Shampoo, No! Don't!" Cologne screamed in Mandarin. 

"Ranma! Son! Stop!" shrieked Nodoka. 

Shampoo inexplicably found herself missing her target and somehow flipping through the air, impacting hard against the same wall recently used as a bouncing spot for Genma. Ranma had her pinned against the wall with one hand. She was too stunned to notice the strike Ranma had arrested just before it crushed her windpipe. 

Everyone froze. Cologne had just rapped Genma smartly about the head with her staff. Nabiki was about to launch the idiot into the back yard with a kick. Nodoka was half risen from the table with the family sword. Akane, Soun, and Kasumi watched from the table with various expressions of disgust and amazement. 

Finally, Ranma broke the tableau, and growled, "Don't touch me, bitch" in heavily accented, broken mandarin. Releasing his hold on Shampoo and dropping his strike he turned away. "I'm going upstairs" he continued in Japanese. 

Behind him, Nabiki quietly retrieved her rifle from where she had dropped it, glared at Cologne and Shampoo, and followed Ranma. 

Cologne, trembling, walked to the table and blindly grabbed one of the remaining cups of tea, downing it in a single gulp. "Shampoo you idiot! You may just have ruined everything!" Shampoo slid down the wall, collapsed to a seated position, and begin to cry. 

Cologne took a deep breath. "Please forgive us, Saotome-dono," she said, almost pleading. "Perhaps we could return in a few weeks, after we've obtained more spring water? For now, I'm reconsidering my offer to those idiots to permanently contain Happosai." 

Soun burst into tears, and Genma tried to whimper his pain through the paralysis. 

Akane shuddered. She hadn't thought to blame him for beating up his father, she might have done the same after all, but Ranma had nearly killed that girl! What kind of person was he? Had she really been in love with a, a, murderer? He had seemed so nice for a bit.

* * *

Ranma groped his way slowly and heavily upstairs, feeling more than a little dazed after everything that had happened in the last day. Slipping open the door to his bedroom, or what would be his bedroom, or something, he leaned against the wall inside and desperately tried to think, not even remembering to close the door behind him. 

As minds sometimes do when overloaded, his mind seized on an apparent triviality and worried it like a small dog hunched over a bone. Just when had he transformed back into a guy, anyway? The last he clearly remembered, he was a (shudder) she, and beating the shit out of his worthless pile of ex-panda crap of a father. Then the next thing he remembered he was holding that bitch Shampoo pinned against the wall, and his mother was yelling at him to stop. Was he male then? He thought so. Ranma groaned and held his head in his hands, trying to make sense of his situation. 

Nabiki crested the top of the stairs a few moments later. She too, was trying without success to clamp down her wildly raging thoughts and emotions. Absently noting that she must have forgotten to shut her door earlier, she stepped inside and almost tripped over Ranma. In fact, she would have fallen had not Ranma's hand flashed out to steady her. 

Nabiki caught her footing and her breath with a small gasp. Then, too deeply occupied with her own thoughts to notice what she was doing; she followed some instinct and took advantage of the steadying hand, absently leaning into Ranma. Eventually, she noticed something else. With some effort, she took up her customary ice queen persona and asked, "Saotome, what are you doing in my room?" 

"Eh?" Ranma's eyes slowly focused and he looked around him. "Where's my stuff? This doesn't look like our room." 

"It's not ours, Saotome. It's my room. This is before we were married, remember?" Nabiki said from her position still leaning on Ranma. Finally noticing what she was doing, she levered herself upright and pushed away, not without a bit of embarassment. 

This did not help Ranma's turmoil at all. Forgetting about his transformation, he wondered what he was supposed to do now. What did Nabiki just mean? Were they married, or not? Did she want to be? Was she kicking him out? Why had she been leaning on him, then? 

For the first time in months, Ranma didn't feel a clear dictate of honor guiding his path. Honor, along with his passion, had demanded vengance. Honor, despite any feelings or lack thereof, had demanded his marriage to Nabiki. 

Where was honor now? What was the honorable path? Thanks to his mother and Tendo, vengance was no longer demanded. But what about his and Nabiki's marriage? Was that still valid? What would his mother say about this? Gathering his courage, Ranma rubbed the back of his neck and responded. "Uh, yeah, I forgot. So, Nabiki, umm, about our marriage, ..." 

As had been the case a short time ago in the Dojo, neither Ranma nor Nabiki knew what to do and an awkward silence grew between the emotionally adrift youths. Fortunately for Ranma's inability to talk about emotional issues they were once again interrupted, this time by a knock on the doorframe. 

Standing innocently just outside the door, Kasumi smiled at the two inside and stated, "Ranma, since your father indicated earlier you would be staying with us, I've prepared the guest room across the hall for you." 

Turning to her younger sister, she continued with the same happy expression. "Imoto, you really shouldn't have something like that in the house. Would you like me to take care of it?" She asked, gesturing at the assault rifle Nabiki still held. 

Despite herself, Nabiki smiled warmly back at her older sister, welcoming the timely distraction, as Kasumi almost certainly intended. Still, it made her a little nervous. How long had Kasumi been standing there? Had she overheard the comment about them being married? Was her comment about Ranma and the guestroom more than it seemed? 

Taking advantage of the distraction, Nabiki turned her mind to her sister's question. Of course Kasumi couldn't 'take care of' an assault rifle, it was mostly just a topic for Kasumi to use as a pretext, although her sister also was reminding her to do something with it. Well, she really shouldn't have it here in Japan; she could get in a lot of trouble, after all. But, what could she do with it? 

Unlike Nabiki, Ranma didn't see that Kasumi's distraction was more than coincidental. Still, as intended, he saw an opportunity to get out of the immediate situation. "Uh, I can get rid of that if you'd like, Nabiki." Barely waiting for Nabiki's nod, Ranma deftly maneuvered the weapon out of her hands in the midst of a mid-air leap for the open window. 

Landing in the backyard, Ranma briefly reveled in the simple pleasure of showing off, something he'd not really indulged in for months. Doing so had just seemed so trivial the last little while. Shaking off his introspection, he dropped the magazine from the weapon and summoned a ball of hot ki in his free hand. He concentrated on the bright glowing ball of energy until it was too bright even for him to look at directly. Sparked by the intense heat, lightning like tendrils of glowing plasma crawled snakelike off it's surface and clung to his body, suddenly jumping at intervals and earthing themselves into the ground with loud crackles and pops. The back yard was thrown into a sharp contrast of bright light and sharp shadows by the searchlight intensity glow. Slowly, then, he fed the weapon; barrel first, into the intense ball of energy. Molten metal and bits of charred ash dripped from his hand and landed on the rock underneath as the weapon gradually disappeared a bit at a time. 

Unfortunately, Ranma had forgotten one thing. As he reached the breech of the weapon there was a loud bang as the round left in the chamber cooked off from the intense heat. Ranma yelped, and abruptly dropped the remaining bits of the weapon into the expanding glow and tried to clutch his hand. Consequently, he lost control of the ball of ki, which suddenly exploded with a much larger bang. 

Ranma's surprised yelp dopplered across the yard, following him as he was rudely, but predictably, flung into the koi pond by the small, unexpected explosion. Streamers of plasma, the remaining incandescent drops of molten metal and burning wooden splinters from the weapon briefly formed a rainbow trail behind him. Eventually, the sputtering, charred, smoking, and now female Ranma hauled herself upright in the water, clutching her hand where it had been burned by the plasma of the superheated bullet. "Iiitteee." She hissed between clenched teeth. 

Attracted by a genuine laugh, Ranma looked up at the window. Nabiki smirked gently and, still laughing, closed the window, covering Kasumi's 'O' of shock and utter amazement. 

From the porch, Akane unknowingly matched her eldest sister's expression of amazement. Attracted by the noises and intense play of light in the back yard, she had gone out to the porch. There she had been treated to the sight of Ranma casually doing something she would have sworn was impossible. 

Akane was barely good enough to identify the intense ball of energy Ranma had been holding as ki, but no-one should be able to do that. How in the world could a person make his, um, her ki visible like that? And how in the world could anyone make something so intense that it melted steel? Had Ranma done that purely through Martial Arts? Who, or what, was she, uh, he? 

Unconsciously, Akane felt safer around female Ranma than around male Ranma. As a boy, Ranma represented the threat of an unwanted marriage and the hormone crazed crowd of "admirers" she had to deal with at school. Not only that, but she had just seen Ranma the boy nearly kill that Chinese girl, and just now watched him perform a seemingly impossible and rather intimidating feat. 

At heart, though, Akane had a kindly nature. Thus, where she would not yet have approached Ranma as a boy, she made an abrupt, unconscious, decision to try to be friends with the girl. She was not even aware at a conscious level of the dichotomy. Eventually, her feelings about Ranma's two halves would work themselves out without her being aware of it. 

Stepping off the porch, Akane approached the redheaded girl trying to wring the water out her oversized and burned outfit and asked "Hey, uh, Ranma? Are you okay?" 

As she had before, Ranma's face lit up when she saw who was talking to her. A genuinely happy smile blossomed across her face and her eyes seemed almost to transform into a warm, bright, sky blue. Registering what she had been asked, a slight flush of embarrassment colored her cheeks, and she averted her gaze and played with her ponytail. "Yeah, I'm fine. Sorry about that." 

"What'd you do? I mean, that felt like some of the ki manipulation techniques Dad has shown me, but I've never seen anyone do anything like that." Akane asked. 

"Heh, neat look'n ain't it? It's just a variation on a technique one of the old Amazon ghoul's fellow bitches tried to use on me when we were fighting. It's actually supposed to use the lighting bolts ya saw, not the hot ball o' ki. It's not really that great for fighting, though, it takes too long to make." Ranma replied in a matter of fact voice. 

Ranma looked at Akane again. "Um. I could try ta teach ya, if you'd like. It's not really that hard to do after you build up your power enough. You'd be amazed what you can do after you've blown up your first mountain. It may take a bit to build up to that level, o'course, but there's lots o' stuff you can learn on the way." 

After having just seen what Ranma had just done, coupled with the completely matter of fact tone of voice she spoke in, it never even occurred to Akane to doubt Ranma's claims. "Blow up your first mountain?" she gasped. "How many mountains have you blown up?" 

Ranma pouted cutely for a moment while she thought. "Um, two, I think. That one with Herb, and of course the one with Saffron." 

"You, you can teach me how to do that? That'd be great! When do we start!" Suddenly, a bright-eyed Akane was bubbling over with enthusiasm. This was what the martial arts were about! 

"Well, I'm not formally licensed ta teach, but the old letch, uh, that's the 'master' Happosai the old crone and your Dad mentioned inside, ain't here ta give me one anyway, and it's not like pops can stop me, so I guess we could start now if ya'd like." Replied Ranma, responding to Akane's enthusiasm with her own. 

Unthinkingly, she took Akane's hand as she turned toward the dojo. "C'mon. Let's go in the dojo. We can start with some basics; some sparring, followed by some balance and some breathing, I think." 

Akane eagerly followed Ranma, taking just a moment to parse the bad grammar and figure out what she was being told. 

Inside, Ranma dropped Akane's hand and turned to face her. "Okay, to start with you just try to hit me, and I'll just dodge without blocking. It's a speed exercise. Slow but powerful attacks will miss, ya gotta be fast. Power comes after speed, okay? Meanwhile, I'll tap ya if I see any bad openings in your defenses. Also, I'll stop ya from time to time to make corrections. Okay?" 

Akane listened intently to her new instructor, nodding in understanding to each point. Taking up a stance, she began by throwing a hard right jab, which Ranma flowed inside of. 

After a few more techniques and seemingly effortless dodges, Akane felt a tap in her floating ribs under her punching hand. "Tighten that up, Akane. You're overextending." Later, other comments were heard, such as "Just relax, you're trying too hard. It makes you tense, and that slows you down and telegraphs your move." or "Stop there a minute, make certain you get a good weight transfer on that, but time it so that your hand reaches its target a millisecond before your weight shift finishes." or "Good! You're relaxing! Didja hear how that technique snapped?" 

Eventually, a happily exhausted Akane and buoyant Ranma exited the dojo. Ranma was still chattering happily away about technique. "Ya see, you really do want your punch and weight shift to land at the same time, in order ta put your whole body behind it. The problem is, if ya train like that your foot always goes first, since that's what normally happens. So ya try on purpose to do the opposite, make the punch go first. Then it comes out right, see? It's like training your punch, right? You never punch from your waist in a fight, but the big motion trains the right kinda punch." 

Akane eventually stopped Ranma by raising her hand with a tired smile. "I'm tired, Ranma, and I need a bath. Can we train again tomorrow?" Akane hesitated for just a moment, then gathered her courage and quietly asked, "Ranma, that story that Cologne told earlier. Was it true? Were we engaged? Did we, uh, did we like each other?" 

"Heh, uh" Ranma hummed for a moment and clamped down on her first, instinctual insult. The impulse to push Akane away was still there. Instead, she scratched her pigtail in her classic pose of embarrassment. She couldn't lose this opportunity by her own stupidity or fear, like she had lost everything the first time. It might be the toughest fight she'd ever be in, but she was determined to get it right. Therefore, Ranma made a momentous decision. For the first time, no matter how hard, she was going to talk to Akane. 

"Yeah, it's mostly true." Ranma replied quietly. "It wasn't as easy as she made it sound, mind. We used ta fight a lot. But you were just about the only person who was ever nice ta me without wanting something from me, or who didn't want me to be someone else." 

Akane blushed at the complement and changed the topic. "We used to fight? Why?" 

Ranma grimaced. "We got off ta a real bad start. You didn't know I was a guy at first, and, well, uh," Ranma floundered, despite her newfound determination. "and, well, uh, some embarrassing stuff happened. Too, the marriage thing was pushed on us both, and we took ta calling each other names and fighting, and stuff. I used ta call you tomboy, and uncute, and stuff, and you'd call me pervert, and jerk, and sometimes hit me, and well, uh, it wasn't good." 

For a short while, a silence grew between the two teenagers. Ranma eventually broke it. "I always wanted to say I'm sorry, and never did, and then it was too late." 

Ranma looked so forlorn that Akane couldn't help but to reach for one of her hands and squeeze it. "Um, I don't know what to think about your story, but, um, I guess I could see why I liked you." Akane flushed, dropped Ranma's hand, and turned and ran for the house. 

Behind her, a suddenly stunned Ranma was left standing with one hand still in the air, poleaxed more thoroughly than any punch of Ryoga's. "Wow." was all she eventually said.

* * *

"Goodness, is Ranma alright? Perhaps I should go and check on her." 

Nabiki turned from closing the window and regarded her older sister, still standing with an amazed look. "He's fine Kasumi," she replied, with a slight emphasis put on the gender of her reply. "I've seen him take lots worse in our last year of fighting." 

"Oh. Well, if you're certain it's alright." Kasumi smiled and sat on Nabiki's bed. It might be a little early yet, but she felt it would be best to broach certain topics sooner rather than later. Whenever her sister wasn't talking to her, Kasumi had noticed a great emptiness and hate in Nabiki. And her eyes, her sister's gaze was outright frightening, almost the same as their new houseguest, Ranma's. Kasumi was frightened for her little sister; she would do what she could to help. "You must have lot's of stories to tell, younger sister. Or are you really my younger sister, now?" 

"Hmm. Good question. I think so." Nabiki sat next to her sister and her face grew distant for a moment as she thought. "If I remember right, it was about a year and 9 months from now until we came back. That still leaves me a few months younger than you." 

"It sounds exciting. And you haven't told your sister any of it yet." Kasumi giggled conspiratorially. Unable to help herself, Nabiki joined her. Finally, Kasumi became serious again and pointed at the ring on Nabiki's hand. "Most importantly, who is, or was, the lucky guy? Ranma?" 

Nabiki twitched, then sighed. Of course her sister had noticed the ring, and probably overheard them speaking as well. In the old days, Nabiki would probably have brushed off her sister's query. Now, though, Kasumi was far too precious to her. Working the ring off her hand, she gave it to Kasumi to look at. "Yes, it was Ranma. Daddy and Mr. Saotome forced it on us the day after the massacre at Akane and Ranma's future wedding. Neither of us is really certain if it applies. It's hard to know if anything we did or promised then matters now." Nabiki paused for a moment, and her face twisted in anger. "It certainly looks like the promise of vengeance doesn't. I still don't trust those damn Amazons. They just better watch their steps." 

"Nabiki, your language," Kasumi gently rebuked her sister, then continued, "You know that's not the real reason. The feud no longer holds because Elder Cologne apologized to Daddy and Auntie Nodoka, not because you, Ranma and Cologne came back to now. You need to try to let it go, sister, before it hurts you." 

Kasumi sighed inside. When she looked at Nabiki's frightening hatred displayed in her sister's eyes, she saw that her words were having little effect. 'Perhaps it's better to divert her attention for now' she thought. Verbally, she continued, "Likewise, what's important between you and Ranma isn't what time you're in, but whether or not you made a vow." 

Thankfully, the change in topic seemed to help. Nabiki face become slightly less hard and her eyes less empty as she turned her mind to other considerations. "I know, big sister, I know. But, don't you see, now Akane has a chance to be happy. Something Ranma and never were, not really. All we ever did was fight the Amazons and watch our families fall apart. There's no documents now to show we were ever married, and the only people who know are Ranma, me, probably Cologne, and now you." Nabiki paused for a moment to take a deep breath. "I owe her that chance, big sister. I did some things to ruin or delay their relationship in the future." Nabiki indicates the ring in Kasumi's hand. "I'm willing to give that up for her, even if Ranma and I did work pretty well together, I guess. Heh, who'd have thought a dumb jock would have had it in him?" 

Kasumi shook her head. "Are you sure about this, Nabiki? It's not like you to walk away from a promise. Also, from what I've seen of the two of you today, I think you two may depend on each other more than you know or admit to yourselves. And what about Ranma, would he be happy with himself if he breaks his promises?" 

"Kasumi ... " Nabiki chewed her lip for a moment as she tried to marshal her arguments. "Look, this is just too fast. To me, yesterday, Akane was dead, you were a paraplegic, and Ranma and I were fighting Cologne." Nabiki's clenched her fists in anger, and her eyes flashed. "And it's all set to happen again, don't you see? You know that all the other people who made Akane's life a living hell are still out there. I'm not going to let it all happen again, Kasumi. I'm not. I owe Akane too much." 

"It's alright, Nabiki-chan, it's alright." Kasumi hugged her distressed sister. "I'm sorry. Of course, I won't tell anyone about this without your permission." Nabiki nodded jerkily and shuddered a bit, released her tension, and eventually settled down again. 

After a few moments, a wicked gleam returned to Kasumi's eyes and she deftly offered a break in the tension. Handing back the ring, Kasumi put on her best innocent expression and asked, "But you still haven't told me any of the really important bits. Like, do I find a cute boyfriend in the next year?" 

"Kasumi!"

* * *

Twilight slowly drifted over Nermia; the soft darkness spreading like a soft blanket over the harsh realities of day. In one particular yard, a pigtailed young man sat morosely perched on a large rock, slowly skipping stones across a koi pond, and watching as the stone raised ripples merged, bounced, and faded away. The metaphor seemed appropriate to Ranma, even if he wouldn't have used the word. 

After a bath and change of clothes, Ranma had retired to the pond to try, again, to think things out. This thinking thing seemed to be something he was doing a lot of, lately. 

He was glad, very very glad, that Akane and his mother were alive and Kasumi uninjured, but on the other hand, it seemed as if everything he'd done in the past year was worthless. Far from resolving his problems, this trip to the past seemed to have brought them all back. The Amazons were still here, with all their stupid laws. Even if Cologne did apologize and try to cure him (Stupid Pops), he still didn't trust 'em. 

Even worse, now he felt trapped as badly as in the worst of the multiple fiancee situation. He still had very strong feelings for Akane. To himself at least, he'd even admit he loved her. However, he now had obligations to Nabiki, too. He couldn't just abandon Nabiki like they were never married, could he? And now Ucchan was alive again somewhere, too, and didn't he also have an obligation to her? 

Aside from all this, all the crazies in his life were out there again, just waiting to start the entire mess all over again. Even if the Amazon bitches continued to play nice (like yeah right!), the two Kunos, Ryoga, Mousse, Happosai, Taro, Herb, and Kami knows who else were all out there, somewhere, just waiting to cross his path again. Even worse, just waiting to cause trouble for Akane. 

Half consciously, he snarled and half curled his hands into fists. If he had anything to say about it, he wouldn't be putting up with shit from any of them. None of the bastards would hurt Akane again! He knew a good place to start, too: with the mob of assholes attacking Akane every day at school. 

Well, if he was going to do this right, he had better find Nabiki. Ranma stood and turned around to go and find her only to come to a sudden stop, as Nabiki was already stepping off the porch on her way to Ranma. Unnoticed by either of them, the hard, empty expression on her face was a close match for his own. 

"Ranma, we need to talk about school tomorrow." 

Meeting her gaze, Ranma nodded.

* * *

Authors notes 

According the the giant panda information at the largest pandas grow to be "about 250 pounds (115 kg), about the weight of a large adult human." 

Clearly, Genma in his panda form is shown to be far larger than this. Besides, it's more dramatic. :-)

* * *

Authors notes 

Thanks to all who reviewed! I received some very insightful comments, and some very nice ego boosting as well! Even though I did ask for feedback, the quality of feedback I've received leads me to believe that my writing must be ok. :-) Please keep the reviews coming!

* * *

Authors notes 

Thank you all again for the reviews. Please keep 'em coming! 

A resolution to at least one of the dilemmas facing our heroes is in sight, should they choose to accept it. What will honor demand?

* * *

Authors notes 

One reviewer pointed out a continuity error on my part, when I called the curse water Cologne offered as a cure Spring of Drown Boy, instead of Man. All I can say is whoops. "Ignore the plot hole behind the curtain! I am the great author of, er." Okay, that didn't work for you? How about "Damn the plot holes! Full speed ahead! " Okay, okay, I'm sorry. No more stupid references. You get the basic idea, anyway. 

Oh yea, I mentioned this in an email response to one comment, but it'd be useful to post here, as well. I have no intention of following out all the events in the Ranma universe with these 'new' characters. 

This story isn't another version of 'how should Ranma have handled his life', it's about the conflicts and dilemmas of the characters as I've portrayed them. The conclusion of this story will be when the characters have reasonably resolved (or have hope of resolving) their conflicts and dilemmas. 

Thanks for the comments, and please keep the ego stroking coming! "Feed me Seymore!" So I lied, I used another stupid reference.

* * *

Authors notes 

Whoo hoo ! Another chapter finally done ! I had been forced by other circumstance to take a week or two break from writing. When I went back, I started by rereading my stories. Typically, my reaction was "who wrote this crap ? I actually published this ?" 

Ergo, I decided to take my time on this chapter, to write slowly, and edit and reedit multiple times. Also, I asked someone to pre-read for me, and he kindly aquiesced (thanks Mark ! I owe you a beer !) Hopefully, the story is better for it. 

Thanks for reading ! I hope you've enjoyed !

* * *

Authors notes 

thanks again to the folks who were kind enough to pre-read this for me. 

Please forgive the section titles of this last part. It turned out to be inappropriate, as I find myself taking the story in a direction I had not originally planned. I had intended to make the centerpiece of this section Ranma and Nabiki struggling to decide what honor required of them, thus 'Path of Honor'. Instead, because of how I see the characters development to this point, the story has turned another direction. 

On the plus side, thanks to some comments I received (thanks Ukiechan!) I finally see a resolution to this thing, and it's not a horrible self-destructive one. On the minus side, there's still some amount of ickyness necessary to get there. 


	5. The Path of Dissonance

**The Path of Dissonance**

* * *

"Did you get the stuff ?" 

"Like I said, the old witch had what we needed." 

"Damn. He deserves this and more, but I hate relying on those ..." 

"I know. Don't worry, we're just taking advantage of a convenient resource. It seems - appropriate - to use the bitches to take care of some of little sister's other problems." 

"Whatever, let's go or we'll be late."

* * *

"Ranma! Boy! Where is that lazy son of mine?" 

"Good morning Saotome-san! I believe Nabiki took him to school early to get registered. She mentioned something about 'taking care of some problems.'" 

"Registered? But I had already registered him?"

* * *

Akane Tendo was going to school, accompanied only by a set of drab, low hanging clouds. This was not unusual. Every Japanese teenager went to school. However, the vast majority of Japanese teenagers did not have to prepare to be assaulted by what amounted to half of the male students in their school in some sort of weird dating ritual. The thought of being forced to date someone who could, and would, beat her up was terrifying. Thus, Akane Tendo not only had to travel to a destination, but do a certain amount of psyching up as well. 

"I hate boys. I hate boys! I Hate Boys! I HATE BOYS! Er ..." 

Akane's tirade careened around the corner of the gates and was promptly lost in the general tumult. For once, Akane found she was not the center of attention, and was not being attacked. Instead, the ire of the crowd of hormone laden boys was directed at another figure. 

"Who the hell are you to tell us what to do?" 

"Yeah! You can't stop us from dating Akane!" 

"No way can you take on all of us!" 

Several yards in front of her, a red shirted Ranma crouched in preparation against the braying of the crowd, slowly flexing his fingers. "Only warning, back off Akane, or fight me." 

The boys attempting to 'date' Akane had little patience. Blind stupidity they excelled in however. With only such few mental resources available, by this point in the confrontation the group of high school students was little more than a mob. 

Often, the final trigger for mob violence was only the actions of one person, it was in this case. "Out of the way, kid, or we'll break you" one particularly large teenager from the baseball team threatened, and made the mistake of swinging his bat at Ranma. 

What followed was one-sided, brief, and brutal. The rest of the mob attacked as well, and Ranma was heavily outnumbered. If Akane wasn't distracted by the bloodthirstiness on display, she might have been surprised at the outcome. Even for someone who had been fighting several dozen hormonally crazed boys on a daily basis, it was not an appetizing sight. Just from her position at the gates Akane could see several broken bones and other serious injuries among the fallen boys, scattered chaff like across the school yard. 

Akane felt sick. She may not have liked the daily assaults, okay, she vehemently hated them, but still, she had never seriously injured anyone. What the hell was Ranma doing? She didn't need him to fight for her, especially like this! Unbidden, the image of that Chinese girl pinned against the wall came to her mind. This was ..., this was frightening, perhaps moreso than Kuno. 

Akane gathered her courage and made a tentative step forward, "Ranma, what ..." However, whatever she might have said was never completed. 

"What brutal demon is this, which strives to keep me from my holy quest for the fiery and spirited Akane Tendo? I, Kuno Tatewaki, the blue thunder of Furikan high shall smite you and send you back to the pits from whenst you came!" 

This new, unwelcome, voice drew Akane's eyes across the courtyard. There stood her nemesis, the primo idiot Kuno Tatewaki, in all his so called glory. Bokken raised, he poised in all his righteous arrogance. 

"What I said for them goes double for you, too, idiot. You been, uh," Ranma carefully enunciated, "inciting kids to attack and try to hurt Akane, and you been assaulting her yourself. Nobody else is doing anything about it. The assaults on Akane stop now, or you fight me." 

"Very well demon, but know that the forces of heaven shall not be defeated! When I have slain you and vanquished you to the hells, I shall claim Akane Tendo as my rightful prize. I strike!" 

Akane couldn't help herself, she shrieked as Kuno's wooden bokken struck the wall behind where Ranma stood, shattering it into dust and rubble. Somehow, though, Ranma was no longer there. Instead, he appeared to be standing, impossibly, parallel to the ground with his feet planted halfway up the trunk of a sizable tree. 

Kuno struck again, diagonally downward, and again inexplicably missed Ranma. His stroke incredibly sliced entirely through the several foot diameter tree trunk, toppling it. 

Akane could only stand and watch in shock. What? How was this possible? A, A, mere wooden bokken, shattering a concrete wall and cutting through a tree? Wouldn't that kill someone? What was happening? Ranma was, was, brutal, and Kuno, Kuno was trying to kill? 

Ranma stood now with his back to a statue, his apparently casual stance only belied by his serious expression. Likewise, Kuno stood poised several feet away. The dramatic moment was broken by a clap of thunder as the clouds began dumping their promised rain. 

Akane never quite saw what happened. One moment Kuno was charging the still form of Ranma. Then, something happened. The statue behind Ranma exploded, Kuno's strike apparently having demolished it. A now female Ranma landed easily behind Kuno, gently drawing a hand down his neck and back, apparently having flipped over the other boy, and unconcernedly walked away. Kuno was left standing rigidly in place, empty handed, surrounded by a rapidly settling mist of wood splinters mixed with some blood. 

Only by her movement did Nabiki come to Akane's attention. Akane's older sister had a cold expression somehow more callus than even Ranma's. Walking in front of the unmoving kendoist, she slapped a strip of paper on his forehead. For just a moment, the black ink on the paper seemed to shimmer. Kuno slowly and rigidly toppled over, landing with a splat, more like the tree he had earlier toppled than a person. 

Nabiki gestured to two of her flunkies standing a short distance away sporting matching pale expressions, scared even. One carried a video camera, the other a first aid kit. After a start, the one with the first aid kit moved hesitantly closer. 

Akane's gaze followed the hesitating girl forward. She could now see Kuno's hands were a flayed, bloody wreck, exposed to the bone. What flesh remained was deeply embedded with sharp quills and wood splinters. 

Akane turned aside and threw up into the remains of the school wall. By the time she felt able to look up, Nabiki was gone, and Ranma had apparently helped her to in front of the bathrooms. Akane ignored the concerned expression on the smaller girl's face, shook her off, and dashed inside, leaving the nonplussed redhead outside.

* * *

Cologne settled herself as comfortably as she could on the hard backed restaurant chair, taller than she was, and sipped her morning tea. Other similar chairs were stacked around her against the dusty counter and on the small tables. As before, she was able to purchase the small, currently closed eatery which would have become the Nekohanten. It would have to have a different name, Cologne thought, but the surroundings felt comfortingly familiar. 

There would be much to do to ready the establishment for business, but there was no real rush. As before, she was in Japan for a different purpose. The restaurant need do no more than provide a place to stay, food, and an excuse for the immigration officials. 

So, Cologne sat with her tea and considered the morning's events. Despite the expected initial hostility of Ranma and Nabiki and the disastrous first meeting, events looked hopeful. Already, the teenagers had approached her for help; in a rather uncharitable manner, true, but it was a start. 

Perhaps she could win back some measure of trust from them. She only prayed that Ranma and Nabiki would recover some sense of their humanity in the process.

* * *

"Had to show off again, Saotome? No need to try to make your fight with Kuno exactly the same as before," Nabiki coolly addressed her partner, currently in male form, waiting in the hall outside the vice principles office. Obviously, he had had time to change back sometime after the fight. She had asked Ranma to meet here when they planned the morning. Better to deal with the official reaction on their own terms rather than wait to be summoned. 

Casually leaning against the wall a few feet away, Ranma shrugged, responding with a tinge of amusement. "What can I say? It's not like the jerk's original or nothin. Heh, he did call me 'demon' instead of 'sorcerer' this time." 

"Well, at least it was a clean fight, I have it all on tape. There's no question the horde and Kuno attacked first, and used far greater force than you. Even if criminal charges were justified, none of the families could file them without losing face by admitting they were assaulting little sister. There should be no problems." 

"Good. We have a few more to take care of." 

The silence in the hallway filled with a cold sense of satisfaction.

* * *

"Ranma, what did you do him?" 

It had taken a little while before Akane could bring herself to talk to the black haired youth holding buckets beside her in the hall. Even now, her query came out as little more than a whisper, and she couldn't raise her eyes to his. 

When she finally managed to pull herself together in the bathroom and make it to class, Akane had been sent out to the hall. The teacher had not done so without sympathy, however. Uncharacteristically observant for a Furikan faculty member, he could see that time alone was what she needed. After he had returning from wherever he had been, Ranma was sent out to the hall with Akane. 

Ranma raised his view from where he had been glaring suspiciously at his buckets of water, held at arms length as if they contained live serpents. Even through the impatient glaring, Akane had not missed the frequent concerned glances he had given her. 

"You mean that jerk Kuno?" 

At Akane's nod, Ranma continued. "Hey, I didn't do nuthin to him. I just blocked the ki he tried to feed into his bokken, so when he tried to hit somethin, it shattered like a real stick instead'a cutting. If he wouldn't've attacked, nothing would have happened. Then I just hit a few pressure points to lock his muscles. I shoulda done a lot more to the creep." 

"But Ranma, his hands! And all those other boys!" 

Ranma came the closest thing to glaring at her Akane had yet seen. "Hey, they were each try'n to do a lot worse on me. You want me to just let 'em? Maybe I shoulda just let that baseball bat crack my skull. Or you want to one of 'em to beat you? Hell, we even did Kuno a favor." 

Not having a ready argument to this, Akane did something very uncharacteristic. She backed down. She was confused, conflicted, and not a little frightened, and she almost wanted to like Ranma. Perhaps this was justifiable, no matter how bad it looked. Wasn't it? 

Still, no-one ever accused Akane of not being stubborn. Summoning her courage, she made one more attempt to question Ranma. "A favor?" 

"Yeah, that ofudo. That's some magic of the old ghoul's. It made it so Kuno can only perceive and utter the truth, even the ones in his head. No more telling himself that you love him, or that you want these fights, or nuthin. Pretty neat, eh?" 

"Um, yeah. Look Ranma, I think I should be going home for the rest of the day. Um, tell the teacher for me, okay?" Never raising her eyes, Akane carefully set down her buckets and slowly walked down the hall. Shadow and sunlight played across her as she passed each window, her subdued footsteps fading in the stuffy silence. 

Nonplussed, Ranma looked back and forth between the classroom door and the retreating Akane. "What? Was it something I said?"

* * *

"Nabiki! Ranma! Stay a moment. There's something we need to discuss." 

The pair in question settled back into their positions at the Tendo supper table and met the stern gaze of the Tendo and Saotome patriarchs. The pair of youths had only returned to the Tendo home shortly before dinner, Nabiki uncharacteristically wearing a comfortable but long sleeved formal kimono, and Ranma in his semi-formal Mao style Chinese army outfit. Curious, Akane and Kasumi also settled back at the table. The responses to this request remained entirely in character, disappointing no one in the floor show. 

"What is it daddy?" Cool. 

"Yeah Ojayi, whatcha trying to do this time." Caustic. 

"Silence boy! This is a serious matter!" and Bombastic. 

"Indeed it is. We hear that you may have taken some actions which reflect seriously on the honor of our families." Only this response was abnormal, showing the occasional sternness that still lurked in the depths of Tendo Soun's persona. 

"Honor, now there's an idea," the barely audible caustic mutter drifted about the room in response. "Ojayi wouldn't know honor if it bit him in the butt." 

Genma choose to ignore that comment from a finely tuned sense of self preservation. He had been regularly having his hind end handed to him on a platter during the last several day's sparring sessions, and he was no longer quite certain about being able to control his son. He had the disturbing feeling that his son might stop holding back at any moment. It was something in his eyes. The same look was in the second daughter's eyes too, come to think of it. 

Genma affected his best "pose of authority," hands on knees and leaning forward with arms akimbo. Possibly intentionally, the light reflected dramatically on his glasses, outlining the serious face he assumed. "We are informed of certain incidents at the hospital the Kuno boy was taken to which involved other members of his family." 

"They nutcase sister? Hey, they should both be grateful. We got 'em help insteada squash'n 'em like ..." Ranma was interrupted by a splash, "Hey what'd'ya do ooof," and her sudden alto again interrupted by a strategically placed elbow. 

Some people just don't learn, Nabiki reflected, pulling her elbow out of Ranma's side and absently rubbing the new bruise it now sported underneath her long kimono sleeves. If she had to do that again, she'd likely end up reopening the stitches on her arm. 

"Daddy, Uncle Saotome. We did only what was necessary. In both cases, it was the Kuno sibling's own actions which caused their hospitalization or commitment." 

Soun and Genma's incipient response was effectively quelled by Nabiki's stare. It only lasted for a second, but it silenced the duo. Deciding the grind in the point, Nabiki continued, "If someone had not neglected their duties, this may not have been necessary, father. We only acted to stop the morning assaults on your daughter when others failed to do so." It was shameful to skirt so close to direct accusation, but only family was here. More important, this would likely keep the father's off their backs. 

"Committed?" a pensive Akane asked, quietly. 

"Hey, you try go sprouting off like that in a hospital. In front of a cop, too. 'Lowborn harridan shall feel my wrath'. What a load of crap. The bitch cut Nabiki, too." 

Nabiki instantly regretted having foregone elbowing Ranma again in favor of sparing her arm as the alternative manifested: her father exercising his best performance art pieces, giant head -o- doom alternating with human fountain revision 103. Chin in hand, she could only sigh at her family's idiocy and pray it wasn't genetic. 

"What! My daughter is hurt! Ranma! How could you let this happen!" 

Akane excused herself and went to her room, disturbed and unhappy for reasons she wasn't quite certain of. Her eldest sister Kasumi only sported a barely visible frown as she cleared the table. The slight extra distance that Kasumi kept from Ranma and Nabiki went unnoticed by all, perhaps even Kasumi herself.

* * *

The ring of the bell signaled the end of another day's classes at Furikan high school. Immediately, the building and grounds overflowed with active, chattering students. Many students merely went to another room or location in order to participate in some club or other, but many also immediately headed for the school-ground's gate, often in the company of small groups of friends or family. 

Akane unwittingly formed the core of one such group, followed as she was by Ranma, and met by Nabiki. Bidding goodbye to others of her friends Akane led the trio toward the gate, musing lightly on her putative boyfriend cum fiance's and sister's behavior. It certainly hadn't been normal for Nabiki to accompany her, especially to the apparent detriment of her betting pool. It might be her imagination, but it almost seemed like the two of them were, well, guarding her, for lack of a better term. Especially so with the flanking positions they seemed to habitually take, and the way they constantly seemed to be watching ... 

Lost in thought, Akane missed the small signal exchanged between her companions. 

Out of the blue Ranma suddenly moved from his position beside her. His motions were so smooth that it was only after the massive, crater creating impact that Akane reacted. Only later would she remember the sequence of events; Ranma suddenly being covered by a shadow, him smoothly taking a half step to the side, reaching up and grasping something above him, and giving it a sharp, diagonal tug, sending whatever it was tumbling into a hard, uncontrolled landing. 

What 'it' was lay unrevealed in the dust and crater for a second, long enough for Ranma to step forward and give a smooth, obviously targeted soccer style kick. The dust was immediately after washed away with a splash of water, revealing an apparently empty set of clothes, a broken bamboo umbrella, a oversize backpack, and an irate female Ranma. 

"Geez, Nabiki, didja haveta hit me too?" 

Akane blinked. Sure enough, Nabiki stood just opposite her across from the small crater, holding an empty bucket. 

"Stop whining, Saotome. Now, give me the pig, and take care of the rest of this stuff." 

Ranma grumbled, but fished around in the yellow and black clothes for a moment, revealing an apparently unconscious small pig with a black spotted yellow bandanna around it's neck and an obvious bump on it's head. Ranma appeared to examine the piglet, turning it over in her hands and muttering under her breath. It was obvious the upside down pig was a male. Ranma finally poked the piglet in the chest, then turned it over. She repeated the procedure on it's back, only when she pressed it's back a small wisp of smoke rose up, and the piglet jerked awake and began to squeal and ineffectually struggle. 

"There, that handles the hot water problem, and the strength thing too" Ranma exclaimed with satisfaction, handing the squealing piglet to Nabiki with a flourish. 

"It took you long enough. I don't have all day if I'm going to get it down to the pound, you know." 

"Hmp. You know those spots aren't the same as on a human body. And it's not like you're going to carry it yourself, anyway." 

"Wait, isn't that someone's pet? And where'd they go? Shouldn't we find whoever was here?" Akane interjected. 

"No" Ranma smirked, not the confident, teasing, happy smirk Akane had begun to see too much of during their sparring sessions, but a cruel, malicious smirk. "The pig would like to be, but he's not. Won't ever be if I have my way. Hey Nabiki, think you can get them to neuter it?" 

Sure enough, Nabiki handed the piglet, who had suddenly gone impossibly wide eyed and redoubled it's struggle, to one of her 'assistants'. "You know what to do, Shiho," Nabiki told the girl. Interestingly, despite the apparent energy displayed by the flailing piglet, the slight girl had no problems holding it. Turning back to her companions, Nabiki continued as the girl carried the piglet away. "If we're lucky, no-one will want it. And they don't have an infinite amount of room at these places, you know." For a moment, Nabiki's normally cold face matched Ranma's cruel sneer. 

Ranma had meanwhile made the clothing disappear and slung the umbrella and huge backpack across her shoulders. She nodded, glanced at Akane, and changed the subject. "Let's get some hot water and go home." 

The expressions on her two companions faces continued to bother Akane long into the evening. However, it was only late that night combing her hair when her suspicions finally gelled. Akane stared at her suddenly bleached white face in the mirror and asked herself, "Those clothes, and the water. Was that a person ?"

* * *

Ranma slumped at his desk and tuned out the drone of the teacher. He had no clue what the heck the man was going on about, and even less desire to know. Why the heck was school so boring, anyway? Did they make it this way on purpose or what? 

Glancing around, the pigtailed boy let his eyes settle on Akane, who was currently attentively taking notes. Despite himself, the sight of the blue haired girl brought a small smile to his face. Just seeing her still made him feel good. Beside, the last couple of weeks had been good, especially by his standards. 

It was easy to let his mind drift off into reminiscing. Akane and he had been able to do several things together. They had gone to a spring festival, which was a lot more fun than he would have thought; seen some sappy American movie, okay, it didn't have any fighting in it and the lead character was a wuss, but Akane seemed to enjoy it; and even just sat in the park one evening and talked. He had also trained with her nearly every day, and he had to admit, she was improving noticeably. Teaching was a lot more interesting than he'd have thought. 

He found it a bit odd that Nabiki included herself on several of these activities, but her explanation of wanting to help watch over Akane did mostly make sense. 

The girl who had captured Ranma's attention, on the other hand, was having considerably different thoughts. While Akane presented the appearance of being a dutiful student, in truth, she was consumed more by an inner turmoil. She had to admit, spending time with Ranma this last little while had been sort of fun, if a little nerve wracking. She had gradually started to feel a little less nervous about him and her sister when no further unsettling events happened after the pair's meeting with Kuno's sister at the hospital, and even started to open up a little, especially the one afternoon they had spent at the park. 

Yesterday, however, yesterday brought all her fears back, and then some. 

She remembered when a friend's father had insisted on giving a largely neglected year old dog to the pound. As happens too often with Japanese pets, the family had bought a puppy because it was a fad and the animal was cute. However, no-one had invested any significant time into raising the animal, and when it got to be a nuisance it was given to the pound. After a week, it had been gassed. 

Ranma and her own sister had, as far as she could tell, just condemned a Jusenko cursed person to that fate. 

What was she going to do? Fortunately, Kasumi had agreed to go looking for the piglet. She hoped that they could save him. But Ranma... What was she going to do? 

At that moment, the bell rang, startling both of the introspecting students slightly. At least the distraction provided some surcease for Akane's musings, but it only brought a new anxiety forward. At least while class was in session, she had a reasonable excuse to not talk to Ranma, but now... 

"Hey Akane. You wanna go for ice cream or something?" 

Akane started involuntarily. This was exactly what she had been fearing. What to do? What to do? "Uh, not today Ranma. I don't feel up to it, okay?" she replied, never quite looking at Ranma. 

"Well, okay, maybe tomorrow. We can just go home and train, then." 

"Um, not today, okay? I think it'd be better if I just go lay down." Akane finished stuffing her bookbag and stood up, making for the door. 

"Ah, if you think so, but hey, wait up a minute!" Ranma frantically tried to stuff his notes and books into his own schoolbag, thereby succeeding only in creating a greater mess. Finally finishing, he lept through the classroom window to try to catch up to Akane, to no avail, she was already gone. 

"Now what was that about?"

* * *

The sign above the building entrance read, 'Tokyo Metropolitan Government's Animal Protection and Consultation Center, Nermia Ward'. The small black pig had read it while being carried, struggling, into the facility. Now, it was confined into a small wire cage, where it had been for the last 4 days. 

He, for it was a he, was deep in despair. It was odd, perhaps, to think of a pig in despair, but this wasn't exactly a normal pig. For the past four days, he had watched as some of the literally hundreds of thousands of pets abandoned by the notoriously fickle Japanese reached the end of their seven day grace period and were taken to the gas chamber in the back. The same fate would be in store for him, he knew, unless by some miracle one of the vanishingly small number of people who came here to adopt picked him. 

The piglet sighed and rested his snout on his hooves. Like that was likely to happen. Damn that Ranma! If only he had a chance for revenge! The coward had begin by stealing the only meal he sometimes received in a day, and then had run away from his just revenge ! Worse, it was Ranma's fault he had been cursed. Given a couple of days with nothing to do but think he had eventually put two and two together and realized that the redhead in the schoolyard was Ranma. He even recognized her as the one who knocked him into the cursed spring to begin with. 

Then, as if stealing his humanity was not enough, the asshole had somehow stolen his strength, even the little he had as a piglet, and made him unable to tolerate even the slightest touch of warm water, as he had unfortunately discovered when the staff had tried to wash him. He was still suffering from the burns. 

Now, he had been sent to die in this cold, emotionless, prison; gassed to death like the animal whose form he wore, with just enough of a taste of hope to make the torture exquisite. 

Lifting his head, Ryoga the piglet bwee'd his piggy challenge to the heavens. Damn you Ranma. Damn you. Damn you. Damn you. May you rot in the lowest depths of hell. 

"Goodness, Buta-san. You certainly have a loud voice!" 

Diverted from his piggy rant, Ryoga cast his gaze outside the cage where he saw a most heavenly sight indeed. A young woman stood outside his cage, obviously led there by one of the facility's staff members. 

"Is this the piglet you were referring to Tendo-san?" the staff member asked the housedress clad young woman. 

"Well, let me see. If you'd be kind enough to open the cage door for a moment. Yes, just that way. Buta-san, if you are who I think you may be, my sister was concerned and sent me to look for you. I have something here which you may find useful. I think that if I prop up this clipboard in the corner, you could probably hold this brush in your mouth, and here is some ink." 

"Wow! How in the world did you train the piglet to make kanji? I can see why you'd want him back!" 

"Yes, thank you," Kasumi replied while trying to read the inexpert and messy kanji Ryoga was fumbling over in his haste, anger, and ill equipped body. "Buta-san, it took me several days to find you, a little more time is not likely to hurt. If you'd be kind enough to wait while I finish the paperwork we'll soon have more and better opportunity for you to practice your writing. Also my sister would like to meet you. I'll be back momentarily." Kasumi gently closed the cage door and followed the attendant back to the front, wearing a pensive and worried expression. 

The piglet sat back on his haunches, still clutching the brush in his teeth. Ryoga wasn't sure how to deal with this situation, but it seemed an angel had come to rescue him. At least now he had some hope. Hope to live. Hope that someone knew what he truly was. And maybe, just maybe, hope of revenge.

* * *

The ink splattered piglet sat on his haunches and grunted for Kasumi to take the latest sheet of paper. Kasumi sighed sadly from her seat on the park bench and arranged the answer to her last question at the end of pile of several similarly scribbled sheets. Idlely, she flipped through them again as she thought. 

"My name is Ryoga." 

While this method of communication left something to be desired, a piglet's mouth was not the most ideal of calligraphy instruments after all, it sufficed for simple questions. 

"I'm a person, not a pig. I'm cursed." "Ranma cursed me." 

The piglet's name was Ryoga, and indeed, he was a cursed person, similar to Ranma. 

"I can't turn back" "Warm water burns" 

He was a person who Ranma had apparently cursed, then with Nabiki's help, locked into cursed form and left to be killed at the animal pound. 

"The girl, Nabiki, helped him" 

This was so not good. Akane's worst fears were justified. Kasumi was worried and scared. Her middle sister and their houseguest had arranged what appeared to be cold blooded murder. 

"She sent me to the pound." "I would be killed there." 

What had happened to Nabiki that she would do such a thing? What had her sister become? And Ranma, who was Ranma, and what had he done? What else would he do? 

"Well, Ryoga-san, we have to find a place for you to stay at. I don't dare take you home with me. Perhaps Mrs. Yamaguchi down the street would take you for a time. She's alone and wouldn't mind a companion. I think we can at least convince her that you are no normal pig. Meanwhile Akane and I will do what we can to find a cure. Please stay there until we come for you, alright ?" 

The seated piglet nodded firmly, the motion accentuated by the brush hanging ludicrously from the corner of it's mouth. Rescue from the brink of death! Recognition as a human! Someone who helped him, rather than being repulsed by his curse! By now, Ryoga would do nearly anything for the wondrous angel before him. 

Resolve filled him. He would wait, as asked. Then, when his angel succeeded in curing him, as she surely would, well, then he would be able to help her in his turn, by protecting her from the evil that was Ranma Saotome. He only prayed it happened soon. It galled him to think of the gentle angel Kasumi and her sister Akane under the same roof as Ranma, with no one to defend them. 

Kasumi fretted as she gathered up the piglet and various writing materials. This was very serious indeed. Perhaps she could talk to her father? No, that was unlikely to work, her father would ignore the situation. The police would be of no help, she was certain, magic was not something they would accept. Well, at least she could tell Akane that she found the poor boy. Perhaps together they could come up with another idea.

* * *

"Hey Nabiki. You know what's going on with Akane? Kasumi seems awfully nervous too." 

"Miracle of miracles. A Saotome actually notices something before it's shoved down his throat." 

Ranma glared at his sometime partner. "Stuff it with the attitude. This is serious. The last couple of days Akane hasn't so much as stayed in the same room as me if she didn't have to. She's been skipp'n on practice, try'n to walk to school alone, and everything. That ain't like the tomboy." The next bit came out in a mutter almost too low to hear "I'm worried." 

"I know, and we can't watch her if she's actively trying to avoid us. Sanzanin and Mousse at least are still coming in the near future, and then later we'll have to handle Happosai and Tarou." Nabiki paused a moment, then shook her head and continued, puzzled. "I'm not certain why. I'll try to talk to Kasumi and find out, if I can. Kasumi's been avoiding me, too. For now, just be discrete. Use the Umi-senken if you have to." 

Ranma nodded, still obviously fretting. 

Nabiki hesitated a moment, then tentatively reached a hand to Ranma's shoulder, only to drop it uncertainly a moment later. Attempting to cover her uncertainty with action, Nabiki stood and slowly walked from the room. "Let's get going Saotome. Long day tomorrow."

* * *

Authors notes 

Whoot! School's out, no family emergencies, Christmas gifts are done, and work's little less stressful. I can write! Hope you've enjoyed. 

For any who care, I'm also working on the next chapter of Requim Jam.

* * *

Authors notes 

Okay, next installment. Hope it's enjoyed after the long delay. It's not huge, but moves the story along. 

This chapter was largely set-up and character development, something I find much harder to write than action scenes. Ergo, I didn't show as much of (read any) Ranma and Akane's interactions as I'd have liked. Perhaps more of that next chapter. 

Oh, credit to a Carrotglace story for the idea of the 'curse of truth' spell used on Kuno T., 'Permanent' I think it was (without checking). 

Kindly let me know your reaction ! 


	6. The Path of Seperation

**The Path of Seperation**

* * *

Ranma looked up from the T.V. and frowned at the sound of the front door. "I'm going to Dr. Tofu's. I'll be back for supper. Okay?" Akane's voice bounced around the house. 

Damn it! It was bad enough that the tomboy wasn't talking to him. Lately, she went around trying to avoid him, too! The frustrating thing was that he couldn't figure out why. If he only knew, maybe he could fix it. He couldn't do a very good job of protecting her if she wouldn't cooperate. Worse yet, it hurt to be pushed away so. 

Ranma sighed to himself as he rose and quickly exited by way of the porch. Once there, he took a moment to draw into himself into a strange sloth like stance and slowly faded from view. 

Wrapped in the Umisenken, Ranma leaped lightly to the top of the border wall, then from there to a neighboring rooftop. Catching sight of the youngest Tendo walking down the street, Ranma glanced around for possible threats, then cautiously followed.

* * *

Akane strode purposely toward her destination. She knew she was taking a risk, but it had to be done. She had no illusions about evading her sister's and Ranma's attention, should she draw their interest. Therefore, she wanted to complete her visit quickly and without fuss. 

Akane turned smartly into a small building sporting signs advertising chiropractic, acupuncture, and moxibustion services, and exchanged her shoes. Seated inside was a middle aged woman accompanied by a small animal carrier. Akane smiled and bowed in greeting. "Hello Yamaguchi-san. Thank you for all your trouble to take care of our piglet and bring him here." 

"Oh, it's no problem Akane-chan. I'm glad to do so." the woman returned Akane's greeting. "He's been such a dear, the most intelligent little piglet! Won't you sit down while we wait?" 

At that moment the inside door to the waiting room opened, and a tall, kindly faced young man in round spectacles emerged. "Ah! I see you've both arrived! Thank you for coming! Yamaguchi-san, please make yourself comfortable. Akane, will you please bring him back to the examination room?" 

As Akane closed the door to the room, Tofu directed a piercing gaze at the animal carrier in Akane's hand, seeing, perhaps, more then was physically visible. "Akane, I can see that that is a most unusual pig. Please help buta-san out of the carrier and put him up on the exam table. Now, why don't you tell me what's going on." 

"A moment, please sensei." Akane deferred as she carefully lifted the bandanna clad piglet onto the table. "May I give this brush and ink and paper to Ryoga? Then he can tell you himself."

* * *

Tofu fiddled with his skeleton, Betty, as he considered. "Well, Hibiki-san, I don't know yet what we can do. I'll have to do some research. From your symptoms, you appear to be suffering under several extremely rare acupuncture or moxibustion techniques, and at least one, possibly two curses of magical origin." 

Tofu paused momentarily and marshaled his thoughts. "For the moment, I'm afraid I'll have to ask you to be patient. As soon as I know for certain what has happened, I can try to work on a cure. From what you and Akane have said, you have a safe place to stay, correct?" 

Ryoga grunted and nodded in acknowledgment. 

Outside the exam room near the window, a hard faced, pigtailed young man leaned back against the wall and tuned out the quiet conversation filtering from inside the clinic. 

Ranma was no longer bothering with the Umisenken. Instead, he was plunged deeply into the soul of ice. He knew that otherwise his aura would be easily detectable by Dr Tofu, not to mention any other Ki adept within a hundred miles or so of the greater Tokyo area. Even if the good doctor had tried specifically to ignore anything outside the room, his aura setting the office on fire would certainly draw attention. 

You see, Ranma was angry. And not just a little angry. In fact, saying Ranma was angry would be like saying that Krakatoa was a little disturbance, or that a category 5 hurricane was a little breezy. 

What the hell was Akane doing? Here he goes way out of his way to eliminate one of the bigger problems they ever experienced, and he does it quietly and without fuss, and what does the ungrateful tomboy do? Rescue the twit! That's what! And not only did she rescue the ass, but she'd been spending time with the pig and avoiding him like the plague! 

Well, now at least Ranma knew where he stood with her. Maybe after a while he could get over the angry and experience the hurt, but for right now, he just needed to get out of there. He wasn't about to do anything in front of Tofu, at least not yet. Tofu was probably good enough to at least delay him from taking the needed action, even if he couldn't stop him. The next time, though, the next time ... 

As for Akane ... he was mad. He had never been this mad with her. How could she betray him this way? The only thing holding him back right now was Nabiki's warnings to stay out of sight. 

He had to get out of here. Akane would have to take care of herself for a bit. Well, at least the pig couldn't hurt her at the moment. Ranma pushed himself up with a jerk, and triangle jumped up to the top of the building and away. 

A moment later, the window was pushed open, and Dr Tofu put out his head and looked around. "That's odd, I could have swore I heard something out here."

* * *

"Alright! Where the hell are you hiding the porker!" The door to the dining room slammed open, heralding the arrival of a vibratingly angry Ranma-onna. She had spent the last few hours trying to run out her anger, frustration and depression, to little avail. Predictably, she had been splashed. It was a measure of her emotional state that it didn't even occur to her to get hot water immediately on arriving home. 

Angry, frustrated, and rejected, by turns, flaming hot and ice cold inside, she was determined that the pig would fry. By this time Ryoga was perhaps little more than an outlet for her frustration. It might not make complete sense, but Ranma was operating emotionally, not rationally. 

The other occupants of the dining room variously looked up in surprise, or in two cases, flinched. 

The first to respond, predictably, was Nabiki. "What are you talking about, Saotome?" 

Ranma merely pointed accusingly at Akane. "The pig. You had him. Where is he?" 

"You tried to kill him! You locked his curse and tried to kill him!" Akane surprised herself by her outburst, but her own anger, stubbornness, and sense of fair play overrode her fear. While she wasn't entirely certain Ranma wouldn't really hurt her, at the moment, she didn't care. 

Ranma's teeth audibly ground together, and she took a deep, shuddering breath, before visibly loosing the battle for control and screaming at Akane at the top of her lungs. "OF COURSE WE TRIED TO KILL HIM! THE ASSHOLE TRIED TO KILL ME! SEVERAL TIMES! AND YOU DON'T EVEN WANNA KNOW WHAT HE WOULD DO TO YOU!" 

"Ranma!" Nabiki's sharp interjection cut the redhead off mid-tirade. She turned toward her black haired sister and continued in the same clipped tones, a grim expression on her face. "Imoto, am I to understand that you rescued that pig? Do you even know what you've done?" 

"No, that would have been me." Kasumi interjected herself into the proceedings in her own quiet but firm way. "And I know exactly what I've done. In this case, I've saved a person from being unjustly murdered by my own sister." 

Nabiki was obviously taken aback, but managed to rally herself before Ranma could again forcibly inject herself. Nabiki knew that if any semblance of control was to be maintained here, she would have to ride herd on her sometime partner. Even so, she couldn't help but respond to the emotional hurt from her respected elder sister. 

"Unjust! You call that unjust! How can you say that! You have no idea what he's done, or even worse, what he was going to do!" 

"That's exactly my point, Nabiki." The use of her given name was as a slap to the face. "He's not yet done it. Who knows? Given a chance, perhaps he wouldn't. He needs to be given that chance." 

This time Ranma spoke out before Nabiki could interject. "Don't you see! Don't any of you see! It's for YOU damn it! If we don't do this, we know what happens to you! We're doing our kami damned best to help, and then you go and RUIN it!" 

The teacup in Akane's hand finally shattered from the stress she put on it, drawing attention back to her. "No, I don't see! I don't see where you two get off being such high and mighty BITCHES, and going around KILLING people! Like what you did to Kuno wasn't bad enough! He'll never be able to hold a sword again!" She looked down at the blood slowly dripping from her hand. "I'm going to go bandage this, and I think I'm going to go stay over with that poor boy you locked as a pig. At least I know I can trust him. And as for you," here she glared at Ranma, then at Nabiki, "I have no desire to consort with murderers." 

"Here, let me help you with that, little sister, and I'll escort you." Kasumi rose with Akane and left the room with her, deliberately directing her gaze away from Ranma and Nabiki, snubbing them. 

"God DAMN it!" Ranma snarled and punched the table, cleanly breaking it in two and somehow shattering all the remaining tableware at the same time. "A bitch! Where does she get off calling me a bitch!" 

The remaining occupants had merely scooted back from the remains of the table. Genma was by far to intimidated to speak out, and the occasional spine Soun had shown was nowhere to be found. Both the fathers made a quiet fade from the room, to regroup at the nearest bar. 

Ranma and Nabiki exchanged no further words. After the front door was heard to open and shut, Ranma left the mess to head toward the hot kettle kept on the stove, and Nabiki eventually rose for her room. 

The house was quiet.

* * *

Ranma angrily tossed and turned on his futon. How dare they! Didn't they see! All the crap they went through, and this is how they're treated! How could Akane say those things to him! 

Nabiki too, took no rest, disturbed by her own thoughts and anger. Eventually, she sighed, and gave up sleeping for now. 

An idea came to her, and she gave it her normal, due consideration. Everyone was gone, there should be no risk, and she didn't really want to be alone tonight, not when there was at least one person who could understand. 

Ranma's internal monologue was interrupted when the door to his room was slid open. Outside, he could see the kneeling silhouette of the middle Tendo daughter. Nabiki slid inside, still in seiza, and closed the door behind her. 

Several hours later, the door to the by now silent room slid open again, although only a small amount. The eldest Tendo sister gazed with an unreadable expression at the entangled, sleeping, pair in front of her, barely covered by the blanket, before closing the door.

* * *

Along the route to Furinkan high school, a small group of teenagers proceeded toward school carrying their bookbags, heavy with books and notes. That was not the only burden they carried however. A moving knot of almost palpable tension and anger weighed them down more than any physical burden. 

As far ahead of her companions as she could get, Tendo Akane stomped along in a chill disdain, her long blue black hair bobbing purposefully. Not quite losing sight of her, Saotome Ranma strode along the top of a chain link fence separating the quiet street from the canal it paralleled. On the ground beside him walked his co-conspirator and Akane's older sister Nabiki. 

Despite, or perhaps because of, the distance between them, the group of them strode in a silence broken only by the soft sound of their footsteps and the swishing of their clothes. It seemed that even the normal city noise, never truly absent in such as hugely populated area as Tokyo, had receded, leaving them in a bubble of isolation. 

Even as frustrated and angry as he felt, Ranma still considered it his duty to guard the younger Tendo. As was now a habitual precaution, he made use of his vantage point to scan the surrounding area, looking for potential surprises. He even went so far as to periodically leap ahead a short distance and pause. Then, while waiting for Nabiki to catch him up, he would momentarily allow himself to be still and merely feel for hostile intent in the area. Hostile intent other than the Tendo sisters' or his own, of course. 

Even if he wasn't really only looking for threats, there were still a few other things he felt. He was, of course, familiar with the feel of the two Tendos, but something was off with that feeling, moreso than the disgust underlying Akane's anger. It was, hmm, almost had it, it was, there! It was Nabiki? 

As the teens turned the gate into their school, Ranma remarked, "Nabiki, you feeling okay? There's something weird with your ki. It's like you've got another source of it, or something. It ain't very big, comparing, but still." 

Dismissing the issue now that he had mentioned it, Ranma exchanged his shoes and followed the younger Tendo's trail to class. Nabiki, on the other hand, stood in thought for a bit, puzzling out the meaning of Ranma's cryptic statement. It wasn't much of a clue, but Nabiki's nimble mind quickly assembled that and other clues into a conclusion she found distasteful. A sudden flash of recognition and dread flooded her face at the realization. 

Slamming her mask back into place, Nabiki scribbled a note and summoned the nearest student. "You. Miazaki. Take this to the school office. I've got something to do. Tell Saotome too." 

Leaving the quavering student, Nabiki turned and strode out the gate in her normal, cold, manner. Almost. An alert observer, familiar with her habits, would note the hand she uncharacteristically rested on her abdomen.

* * *

Tendo Soun, patriarch of clan Tendo, sat at the go board across from his dear friend and old training partner, and brought his wandering attention back to the game. To all appearance deep in concentration, he stared at the board. Hmmm ... his attention had not been on the game, and his position showed it. This called for desperate measures. 

Suddenly pointing behind his partner, currently a panda, Soun exclaimed, "Saotome! Look out! The Master!" 

As he hoped, the panda reacted in a panic, twisting around and groveling on the floor and holding up several poorly written signs. Soun didn't bother to try to read them, but instead put his speed and precision training to good use. 

"Oh, sorry, my friend, it was only a circus midget. Your turn, I believe." Soun muttered a moment later. 

The panda grunted and heaved itself upright, waving a sign which read "Don't do that to me, Tendo!" before googling it's eyes at the radically changed position on the board. 

Sitting back on his cushion, Soun sighed. The game was unfortunately serving as little distraction today. He idly watched Genma panda employ a clumsy distraction technique of his own and use his presumed inattention to rearrange the board. But, as had happened for several moves now, he just couldn't bring himself to care, even though the distractions were steadily, and obviously, declining in quality. 

The panda appeared to stare carefully at the man across from it, before pulling out a somewhat more carefully written sign, which read, "Is something wrong, old friend?" 

Soun slowly began taking the stones off the board and putting them away. He continued to do so for a few moments before quietly responding, "Our families are hardly joining in the manner that we wished, my friend. More importantly to me, my daughters seem to be experiencing a large rift between them. Last night was merely the most public display of disharmony. Had you noticed?" 

The panda slowly shook its head. Soun gave a small, bitter, smile and a quiet nod. Genma always had been considerably less observant than he. Even if he frequently gave the appearance of obliviousness, his middle daughter's sharpness had been come by honestly. His ignorance was largely willful, not forced. 

"When you first arrived, things were going well indeed. Your son was spending time with each of my daughters, and they all appeared to be enjoying his company. Recently, though ..." 

"Recently though what, Tendo-san?" a melodious female voice continued after a moment. Soun turned his head to see a formally dressed, attractive, auburn haired woman, kneeling by the veranda screen she was in the act of closing. 

"Please forgive my interruption, Tendo-san" Saotome Nodoka smiled gently and made a graceful apologetic gesture. She continued her speech as she slid next to her currently pandified spouse, "I was just coming in, and I couldn't help but overhear your comment." 

The panda grunted in greeting, and somehow made the appearance of being simultaneously pleased and nervous at the woman's presence. Nodoka merely smiled fondly at her husband, and gestured for Soun to proceed. 

"That's quite alright Saotome-dono. You were, after all, expected. I trust that you were able to arrange for your absence as you had hoped?" 

"The charities I volunteer at were very understanding. After all, I have not seen my son or husband for many years, and the opportunity to spend time with them is not to be passed up." Nodoka paused briefly and turned the conversation back to the original topic. "But what seems to be the problem Tendo-san?" 

"There has been a great deal of tension recently between various of our children. So much so that I fear it threatens the pact between our families. It appears that some of my daughters believe your son to be, perhaps, overzealous in his protection. Last night, matters came to somewhat of a head over supper, and, well ..." 

Soun gestured at the outer wall of the compound, where the remains of the split table rested, next to a box full of ceramic fragments. 

"It ended with an accusation of of nothing less than murder. Ill received, as you see." 

Nodoka allowed a small frown to cross her features. "This is indeed most serious, Tendo-san. Perhaps I should speak with him this afternoon." 

The panda and the man exchanged glances and shrugged. Why not? Then they wouldn't have to do it. Of course, it wasn't that they were unwilling to (cough cough), but a mothers hand was often best, right? 

"Hmm ... perhaps the three of us should meet him here? It seems a fairly neutral location." 

The fathers exchanged looks again and silently groaned as they realized that they would be unable to escape that easily.

* * *

Damn, Damn DAMN it! She really didn't need this shit right now! Nabiki stared down at the colored strip of paper in her hand in dismay. 

Of course, she had missed her period at least twice in a row now, but she thought nothing of it. Her recent periods had been more than erratic anyway, especially during the stress and activity of their private war in China and the events leading up to it. 

Finally sighing in resignation, Nabiki began to clean herself and the fortunately deserted department store restroom up. Well, she had been aware of a clinic specializing in such matters for some time, and known people who had used them. Given the right inducement, she knew she could even have the matter handled this afternoon. 

After all, what other choice had she? A pregnancy, now, was the last thing she or Ranma needed, right?

* * *

"Ranma, it is not appropriate for you to treat people so callously when they have yet to commit any crime!" a soft, but stridently firm voice stated. The speaker was not in sight, but it nonetheless carried to the entryway. 

"That's right boy," a basso grumble vibrated. "I didn't raise you to be a common criminal." 

"Mom, I told ya, he attacked me first! And I told you what he did to me an 'Kane! And you, Ojayi! Shut yer thieving trap! Or you wanna explain to Mom what you based the senkens on?" Ranma's voice had a definite edge to it. 

Nabiki groaned while she slowly and awkwardly exchanging her shoes for house slippers, supporting herself with one hand against the wall. She hurt inside, dammit. She had been leaking occasional tears all the way home, from the ache, she told herself, and knew her face to be a fright. In addition, any half competent martial artist, even her sister, would near instantly pick up on how tenderly she moved. 

Confusing feelings kept bubbling up despite her normal control, and she just didn't feel in balance. 

She really, really, didn't want to deal with this right now. 

Well, there was no help for it. Following the voices, she set down the schoolbag she still carried in the dining room, and slowly proceeded out the open veranda door where she heard the argument going on. 

A quick glace revealed the situation. As the tidbits of conversation had indicated, Ranma's mother had returned to their home. She had earlier mentioned arranging to spend time with them when they had first met in this timeline. Unfortunately, backed by her own and Ranma's fathers, Nodoka appeared to be confronting Ranma. 

As yet unnoticed by these participants, Nabiki gratefully took the opportunity to sink to her knees and rest. It would be prudent to observe for a moment and gather her wits before jumping into the confrontation. Unfortunately for Nabiki, she never got the chance to do so. 

"I don't care. I'm not going to let any of that shit happen to you. I'm going to do what I need to protect you, no matter what." Ranma had just stated. He turned to Nabiki, surprising her, and continued, "Look, you explain it Nabiki." 

Apparently she had made some involuntary noise as she knelt. At any rate, the attention of the family was now drawn to her. But before she could gather her wits and respond, a voice she had not noted before interjected. 

"Yes Nabiki. Perhaps you can explain why you two would deliberately cripple a poor boy. Why you would arrange to publicly humiliate your classmates and have them committed. Perhaps you can explain why you and your lover would callously steal someones very humanity, and arrange to have a man murdered in cold blood. Why would one who was once my sister bring shame and dishonor to our family." 

If Nabiki had not been so emotionally fragile, if she were less tired, or if she were more mentally alert, then she might have been impressed at how much bile was packed into those few, short, sentences. She hadn't thought Kasumi would have had it in her. She might not have been able to do that herself even on her best day. 

If she were less tired, or more alert, even as emotionally hurt as she was by her sister, she might not even have seriously screwed up. But she was tired, fragile, and not thinking clearly. As it was, she didn't even notice that her first instinct was to reassure her partner. 

"It's okay Ranma. I won't stop you and..." here she gestured at Akane. "I had it aborted." 

It was only then that she realized what she had just admitted to, and further, what aborting a possible heir said of her attitude to the Tendo - Saotome pact. 

If she had kept the abortion quiet, as she intended, even if the others had found out it might have been ignored. Bringing it up in this context, however, in a way even flaunting it, it was no less than a direct attack on the honor involved in the Tendo - Saotome arrangement. Pile that on top of the argument they were already having, and well, reactions would not be good. 

Nabiki was too tired to do more than drop her gaze as the expressions of the adults around her hardened.

* * *

Later that evening, in a deserted lot some distance from the Tendo Dojo, still well within Nermia proper, two figures could be seen huddled near a small fire. 

Ranma poured a cup of tea from a kettle hanging over a small fire. Nudging Nabiki to get her attention, he handed her the cup, ignoring the small tremble in her hands. After she had taken a few sips, he gently nudged the tired girl into the small tent pitched behind them. 

Ranma sighed. He hadn't thought their families would react this badly, but ... Where in the world could they go now? 

It was going to be a long night. He wished he could see the stars.

* * *

Authors notes 

I realized as I was writing this that I have neglected to interject Nodoka anywhere into these last chapters. It's an oversight on my part, that I don't think I could address sans a rewrite. Gomen.

* * *

Authors notes 

Well, another chapter for your enjoyment. I hope you don't read this slower than I wrote it. :-) 


	7. The Path to Home

**The Path to Home**

* * *

Two teens, a boy with a black pigtail and girl with short brown hair, made their way slowly down an otherwise deserted residential street through the greater Tokyo evening, moving from pool of light to pool of light. The only noise was from the buzz of the streetlamps and the sound of their footfalls.

The two wore backpacks; the boy's considerably larger than the girl's. The girl seemed to be stiff or sore and moved slowly and tenderly, occasionally supporting herself on the boy's shoulder. Neither looked at the other or looked up any more than necessary, nor did either speak.

After a time, the girl quietly sank down on a convenient street side bench. The boy stopped nearby and waited. Still, neither looked at the other nor spoke. Finally, the boy gestured at the bus stop visible further down the street. The girl eventually responded with a tired but succinct gesture, managing to indicate both lack of funds and lack of destination. The boy finally removed his pack and squatted in front of the bench, allowing the girl to climb on his back, arms about his shoulders and legs about his waist.

The boy then picked up his pack by the straps, stood, and begin walking, carrying the girl who was still wearing her own pack. The two continued to trudge down the street in this manner, interrupted only when a passing bus splashed water over them. Hit by the splash, the trudging boy abruptly shrunk several inches, changed hair colors and grew breasts. Pausing only to resettle his, now her, loads; the two continued.

Eventually, the brown haired rider lay down her head on the red head's shoulder as they left the last streetlight's pool of light and passed out of sight.

* * *

Cologne sighed as she looked at the small camp. It had taken her some time to arrive here, not because of any inherent difficulty in tracking its occupants, but because of the delays she incurred getting information about what had happened.

Ranma, his normal pants and a muscle shirt illuminated by the quiet morning sun, was in the middle of some endurance training in the otherwise quiet camp. Currently, he was holding himself balanced in a one handed handstand, with a sizeable backpack balanced on his feet. The only noise in the small clearing was the small sound of the occasional drop of sweat falling the short distance from his head to the ground, unbroken even by a breeze.

Cologne, on visiting the Tendo dojo with a new flask of drown man spring water, was surprised to find Ranma and Nabiki absent and the other occupants of the home actively hostile to the mention of their names. Fortunately, she had not grown to her position due to lack of assertiveness, so it was only a matter of a relatively short time before she had the whole story.

"What'dya want, old ghoul," Ranma growled perfuctionally without looking or changing his position.

Cologne paused before answering, slowing moving into the clearing and selecting a low rock to sit on. She had feared something like this might happen. Now, however, all that was left was to see how much she could limit the damage.

Cologne merely sat silently for a time before responding. "Well, originally, I was bringing you this," she said, as she produced a small cask labeled in Chinese and set it down.

Ranma merely grunted dismissively, and slowly changed his handstand to the other hand without condensending to look. "Whatever."

The flap off the tent twitched desultorily aside, and a gaunt faced Nabiki emerged. A half-hearted twitch of her mouth that under better circumstance might have been a sneer was directed towards Cologne as she similarly sat on a rock beside the old woman's. She poured herself a cup of tepid tea from the kettle over the burned out fire, and hunched over clutching it.

The clearing was silent again for a time. Nabiki sipped her tea, made a face, and continued slowly sipping none the less. Eventually, she dully grated out a query without bothering to look. "Originally?"

Cologne pursed her lips (a frightening sight) and sighed. The children were indeed badly off. The boy seemed hardly to care about the flask she had brought, and the girl seemed no better. She could hardly leave them in this state, if for no other reason than the risk that their ennui and angst might yet again turn into anger and ferocity. Well, sometimes just keeping people a bit too busy and annoyed to brood was enough. "Have the two of you any plans?"

The boy merely grunted again, while the girl made no reply to this query.

Cologne crossed her metaphorical fingers and projected a bit of the force of personality she had developed. "Well..." she began, and sprang into action. Slapping her thighs to break the mood she grasped her staff and used it to sweep Ranma's hand from beneath him. She immediately vaulted onto another rock out of immediate reach. A small cackle escaped her as the boy and pack collapsed with an "oooof" of displaced air. She continued talking over Ranma's pack encumbered glare. "Then the two of you will have no objections to helping me recover a few small objects, and perhaps torment Happosai a bit in the process. I don't particularly feel charitable toward those two buffoons, but the opportunity to properly reseal the old goat is too good to pass up."

A further sweep of her staff sufficed to knock the camp cup from Nabiki's hands in mid sip and dowse the rising boy, turning him into a girl just at the right moment for the heavy and unbalanced pack to overwhelm her lesser upper body strength and send her tumbling back into the dirt. "Unless, that is, you girls have something more _profitable_ to do," she grinned, now needling Nabiki as well.

Ranma gave her peculiar contralto growl, shoved the pack off herself, and began chasing the cackling crone around the clearing. Nabiki merely sat and thoughtfully wiped a few errant drops of cold tea from her face. Lost in thought, she eventually reached out her hand and caught Ranma's pigtail as the girl ran by, the unexpected force causing yet another upset for the unfortunate redhead.

Without either looking or loosing her thoughtful expression, Nabiki addressed Cologne, "Cologne," Nabiki asked intensely, "when you said a few small objects, would one of them be the Nanban mirror?"

* * *

Reseated, the small campfire restarted, and warm tea and hot cereal filling their stomaches, the two children looked notably better than when she had arrived, Cologne noted. Sometimes the simple methods did still work.

"Why yes, I do mean the Nanban mirror. Why do you ask?"

Nabiki still bore an intent expression, one hand hand held a warm cup of tea, the other, perhaps unconsciously, dug painfully into again male Ranma's forearm, causing him to wince at the surprisingly strong grip.

"And would it still work, here?" Nabiki's gaze drilled hotly, intent.

"I don't see any reason why not, child."

"Then, we could still fix things, here, in the past. Couldn't we?" Abruptly, Nabiki was pleading. She wasn't sure exactly who with.

Cologne only gaped in momentary astonishment. Pulling herself together, she answered, "Yes ... We could."

"Huh? Geez, Nabiki. Leggo. What're you so excited about?" Ranma growsed, trying to rescue his arm from a madly grinning Nabiki.

* * *

Author's notes: I'm not making progress on this lately, but here's what's been sitting on my drive for the last year or more. Apologies for the past continuity gaff(s). That's what comes from such infrequent revisiting of your stories, I guess. 


End file.
